In vivo role of nitric oxide in plant response to abiotic and biotic stress

Plant Signal Behav. 2012 Mar;7(3):437-9. doi: 10.4161/psb.19219. Epub 2012 Mar 1.

Abstract

Over the past few years, nitric oxide (NO) has emerged as an important regulator in many physiological events, especially in response to abiotic and biotic stress. However, the roles of NO were mostly derived from pharmacological studies or the mutants impaired NO synthesis unspecifically. In our recent study, we highlighted a novel strategy by expressing the rat neuronal NO synthase (nNOS) in Arabidopsis to explore the in vivo role of NO. Our results suggested that plants were able to perform well in the constitutive presence of nNOS, and provided a new class of plant experimental system with specific in vivo NO release. Furthermore, our findings also confirmed that the in vivo NO is essential for most of environmental abiotic stresses and disease resistance against pathogen infection. Proper level of NO may be necessary and beneficial, not only in plant response to the environmental abiotic stress, but also to biotic stress.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Arabidopsis / drug effects
  • Arabidopsis / genetics
  • Arabidopsis / metabolism
  • Droughts
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / drug effects
  • Nitric Oxide / metabolism*
  • Nitric Oxide Synthase Type I / genetics
  • Nitric Oxide Synthase Type I / metabolism
  • Plants, Genetically Modified / drug effects
  • Plants, Genetically Modified / genetics
  • Plants, Genetically Modified / metabolism
  • Rats
  • Sodium Chloride / pharmacology

Substances

  • Nitric Oxide
  • Sodium Chloride
  • Nitric Oxide Synthase Type I