Arabidopsis Mitochondrial Voltage-Dependent Anion Channels Are Involved in Maintaining Reactive Oxygen Species Homeostasis, Oxidative and Salt Stress Tolerance in Yeast

Sibaji K Sanyal; Poonam Kanwar; Joel Lars Fernandes; Swati Mahiwal; Akhilesh K Yadav; Harsha Samtani; Ashish K Srivastava; Penna Suprasanna; Girdhar K Pandey

doi:10.3389/fpls.2020.00050

Arabidopsis Mitochondrial Voltage-Dependent Anion Channels Are Involved in Maintaining Reactive Oxygen Species Homeostasis, Oxidative and Salt Stress Tolerance in Yeast

Front Plant Sci. 2020 Feb 28:11:50. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.00050. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Sibaji K Sanyal¹, Poonam Kanwar¹, Joel Lars Fernandes¹, Swati Mahiwal¹, Akhilesh K Yadav¹, Harsha Samtani¹, Ashish K Srivastava², Penna Suprasanna², Girdhar K Pandey¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Plant Molecular Biology, University of Delhi South Campus, New Delhi, India.
² Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India.

Abstract

Voltage-dependent anion channels (VDACs) are conserved proteins of the mitochondria. We have functionally compared Arabidopsis VDACs using Saccharomyces cerevisiae Δpor1 and M3 yeast system. VDAC (1, 2, and 4) were able to restore Δpor1 growth in elevated temperature, in oxidative and salt stresses, whereas VDAC3 only partially rescued Δpor1 in these conditions. The ectopic expression of VDAC (1, 2, 3, and 4) in mutant yeast recapitulated the mitochondrial membrane potential thus, enabled it to maintain reactive oxygen species homeostasis. Overexpression of these VDACs (AtVDACs) in M3 strain did not display any synergistic or antagonistic activity with the native yeast VDAC1 (ScVDAC1). Collectively, our data suggest that Arabidopsis VDACs are involved in regulating respiration, reactive oxygen species homeostasis, and stress tolerance in yeast.

Keywords: Arabidopsis; Por1; mitochondria; mitochondrial membrane potential; reactive oxygen species; stress.