Mutual effects of hexose phosphorylation enzymes and phosphorous on plant development

  Research objectives 1) Analyze the combined effects of hexose phosphorylation and P level in tomato and Arabidopsis plants 2) Analyze the combined effects of hexose phosphorylation and P level in pho1 and pho2 Arabidopsis mutants 3) Clone and analyze the PHO2 gene 4) Select Arabidopsis mutants resistant to high and low P 5) Analyze the Arabidopsis mutants and clone the corresponding genes 6) Survey wild tomato species for growth characteristics at various P levels Background to the topic Hexose phosphorylating enzymes, the first enzymes of sugar metabolism, regulate key processes in plants such as photosynthesis, growth, senescence and vascular transport. We have previously discovered that hexose phosphorylating enzymes might regulate these processes as a function of phosphorous (P) concentration, and might accelerate acquisition of P, one of the most limiting nutrients in the soil. These discoveries have opened new avenues to gain fundamental knowledge about the relationship between P, sugar phosphorylation and plant development. Since both hexose phosphorylating enzymes and P levels affect plant development, their interaction is of major importance for agriculture. Due to the acceleration of senescence caused by the combined effects of hexose phosphorylation and P concentration, traits affecting P uptake may have been lost in the course of cultivation in which fertilization with relatively high P (30 mg/L) are commonly used. We therefore intended to survey wild tomato species for high P-acquisition at low P soil levels. Genetic resources with high P-acquisition will serve not only to generate a segregating population to map the trait and clone the gene, but will also provide a means to follow the trait in classical breeding programs. This approach could potentially be applicable for other crops as well. Major conclusions, solutions, achievements Our results confirm the mutual effect of hexose phosphorylating enzymes and P level on plant development. Two major aspects of this mutual effect arose. One is related to P toxicity in which HXK seems to play a major role, and the second is related to the effect of HXK on P concentration in the plant. Using tomato plants we demonstrated that high HXK activity increased leaf P concentration, and induced P toxicity when leaf P concentration increases above a certain high level. These results further support our prediction that the desired trait of high-P acquisition might have been lost in the course of cultivation and might exist in wild species. Indeed, in a survey of wild species we identified tomato species that acquired P and performed better at low P (in the irrigation water) compared to the cultivated Lycopersicon esculentum species. The connection between hexose phosphorylation and P toxicity has also been shown with the P sensitive species VerticordiaplumosaL . in which P toxicity is manifested by accelerated senescence (Silber et al., 2003).   In a previous work we uncovered the phenomenon of sugar induced cell death (SICD) in yeast cells. Subsequently we showed that SICD is dependent on the rate of hexose phosphorylation as determined by Arabidopsis thaliana hexokinase. In this study we have shown that hexokinase dependent SICD has many characteristics of programmed cell death (PCD) (Granot et al., 2003). High hexokinase activity accelerates senescence (a PCD process) of tomato plants, which is further enhanced by high P. Hence, hexokinase mediated PCD might be a general phenomena. Botrytis cinerea is a non-specific, necrotrophic pathogen that attacks many plant species, including tomato. Senescing leaves are particularly susceptible to B. cinerea infection and delaying leaf senescence might reduce this susceptibility. It has been suggested that B. cinerea’s mode of action may be based on induction of precocious senescence. Using tomato plants developed in the course of the preceding BARD grant (IS 2894-97) and characterized throughout this research (Swartzberg et al., 2006), we have shown that B. cinerea indeed induces senescence and is inhibited by autoregulated production of cytokinin (Swartzberg et al., submitted). To further determine how hexokinase mediates sugar effects we have analyzed tomato plants that express Arabidopsis HXK1 (AtHXK1) grown at different P levels in the irrigation water. We found that Arabidopsis hexokinase mediates sugar signalling in tomato plants independently of hexose phosphate (Kandel-Kfir et al., submitted). To study which hexokinase is involved in sugar sensing we searched and identified two additional HXK genes in tomato plants (Kandel-Kfir et al., 2006). Tomato plants have two different hexose phosphorylating enzymes; hexokinases (HXKs) that can phosphorylate either glucose or fructose, and fructokinases (FRKs) that specifically phosphorylate fructose. To complete the search for genes encoding hexose phosphorylating enzymes we identified a forth fructokinase gene (FRK) (German et al., 2004). The intracellular localization of the four tomato HXK and four FRK enzymes has been determined using GFP fusion analysis in tobacco protoplasts (Kandel-Kfir et al., 2006; Hilla-Weissler et al., 2006). One of the HXK isozymes and one of the FRK isozymes are located within plastids. The other three HXK isozymes are associated with the mitochondria while the other three FRK isozymes are dispersed in the cytosol. We concluded that HXK and FRK are spatially separated in plant cytoplasm and accordingly might play different metabolic and perhaps signalling roles. We have started to analyze the role of the various HXK and FRK genes in plant development. So far we found that LeFRK2 is required for xylem development (German et al., 2003). Irrigation with different P levels had no effect on the phenotype of LeFRK2 antisense plants. In the course of this research we developed a rapid method for the analysis of zygosity in transgenic plants (German et al., 2003).