Soybean vegetative lipoxygenases are not vacuolar storage proteins

Oxylipin signaling in salt-stressed soybean is modulated by ligand-dependent interaction of Class II acyl-CoA-binding proteins with lipoxygenase

Plant lipoxygenases (LOXs) oxygenate linoleic and linolenic acids, creating hydroperoxy derivatives, and from these, jasmonates and other oxylipins are derived. Despite the importance of oxylipin signaling, its activation mechanism remains largely unknown. Here, we show that soybean ACYL-COA-BINDING PROTEIN3 (ACBP3) and ACBP4, two Class II acyl-CoA-binding proteins, suppressed activity of the vegetative LOX homolog VLXB by sequestering it at the endoplasmic reticulum. The ACBP4-VLXB interaction was facilitated by linoleoyl-CoA and linolenoyl-CoA, which competed with phosphatidic acid (PA) for ACBP4 binding. In salt-stressed roots, alternative splicing produced ACBP variants incapable of VLXB interaction. Overexpression of the variants enhanced LOX activity and salt tolerance in Arabidopsis and soybean hairy roots, whereas overexpressors of the native forms exhibited reciprocal phenotypes. Consistently, the differential alternative splicing pattern in two soybean genotypes coincided with their difference in salt-induced lipid peroxidation. Salt-treated soybean roots were enriched in C32:0-PA species that showed high affinity to Class II ACBPs. We conclude that PA signaling and alternative splicing suppress ligand-dependent interaction of Class II ACBPs with VLXB, thereby triggering lipid peroxidation during salt stress. Hence, our findings unveil a dual mechanism that initiates the onset of oxylipin signaling in the salinity response.

Experimental sink removal induces stress responses, including shifts in amino acid and phenylpropanoid metabolism, in soybean leaves

The repeated removal of flower, fruit, or vegetative buds is a common treatment to simulate sink limitation. These experiments usually lead to the accumulation of specific proteins, which are degraded during later stages of seed development, and have thus been designated as vegetative storage proteins. We used oligonucleotide microarrays to assess global effects of sink removal on gene expression patterns in soybean leaves and found an induction of the transcript levels of hundreds of genes with putative roles in the responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. In addition, these data sets indicated potential changes in amino acid and phenylpropanoid metabolism. As a response to sink removal we detected an induced accumulation of γ-aminobutyric acid, while proteinogenic amino acid levels decreased. We also observed a shift in phenylpropanoid metabolism with an increase in isoflavone levels, concomitant with a decrease in flavones and flavonols. Taken together, we provide evidence that sink removal leads to an up-regulation of stress responses in distant leaves, which needs to be considered as an unintended consequence of this experimental treatment.