Author:

Keywords:

Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Plant Sciences, Amino acids, carbohydrates, climate change, extreme events, gene expression, lipids, membrane composition, primary metabolism, CARBON-DIOXIDE ENRICHMENT, ENZYME-ACTIVITIES, ABIOTIC STRESS, REDOX HOMEOSTASIS, LIPID-COMPOSITION, OXIDATIVE STRESS, PLANT-RESPONSES, TEMPERATURE, LEAVES, PHOTOSYNTHESIS, Arabidopsis, Arabidopsis Proteins, Carbon Dioxide, Climate Change, Droughts, Gene Expression Regulation, Plant, Hot Temperature, Transcriptome, 0604 Genetics, 0607 Plant Biology, 0703 Crop and Pasture Production, Plant Biology & Botany, 3004 Crop and pasture production, 3101 Biochemistry and cell biology, 3108 Plant biology

Abstract:

As a consequence of global change processes, plants will increasingly be challenged by extreme climatic events, against a background of elevated atmospheric CO2. We analysed responses of Arabidopsis thaliana to periods of a combination of elevated heat and water deficit at ambient and elevated CO2 in order to gain mechanistic insights regarding changes in primary metabolism. Metabolic changes induced by extremes of climate are dynamic and specific to different classes of molecules. Concentrations of soluble sugars and amino acids increased transiently after short (4-d) exposure to heat and drought, and readjusted to control levels under prolonged (8-d) stress. In contrast, fatty acids showed persistent changes during the stress period. Elevated CO2 reduced the impact of stress on sugar and amino acid metabolism, but not on fatty acids. Integrating metabolite data with transcriptome results revealed that some of the metabolic changes were regulated at the transcriptional level. Multivariate analyses grouped metabolites on the basis of stress exposure time, indicating specificity in metabolic responses to short and prolonged stress. Taken together, the results indicate that dynamic metabolic reprograming plays an important role in plant acclimation to climatic extremes. The extent of such metabolic adjustments is less under high CO2, further pointing towards the role of high CO2 in stress mitigation.