Study of the regulatory mechanism involved in dark-induced Postharvest leaf senescence

Postharvest leaf senescence contributes to quality losses in flowers and leafy vegetables. The general goal of this research project was to investigate the regulatory mechanisms involved in dark-induced leaf senescence. The regulatory system involved in senescence induction and control is highly complex and possibly involves a network of senescence promoting pathways responsible for activation of the senescence-associated genes. Pathways involving different internal signals and environmental factors may have distinctive importance in different leaf senescence systems. Darkness is known to have a role in enhancement of postharvest leaf senescence and for getting an insight into its regulatory mechanism/s we have applied molecular genetics and functional genomics approaches. The original objectives were: 1. Identification of dark-induced SAGs in Arabidopsis using enhancer/promoter trap lines and microarray approaches; 2. Molecular and functional characterization of the identified genes by analyzing their expression and examining the phenotypes in related knockout mutant plants; 3. Initial studies of promoter sequences for selected early dark-induced SAGs. Since genomic studies of senescence, with emphasis on dark-induced senescence, were early-on published which included information on potential regulatory genes we decided to use this new information. This is instead of using the uncharacterized enhancer/promoter trap lines as originally planned. We have also focused on specific relevant genes identified in the two laboratories. Based on the available genomic analyses of leaf senescence 10 candidate genes hypothesized to have a regulatory role in dark-induced senescence were subjected to both expression as well as functional analyses. For most of these genes senescence-specific regulation was confirmed, however, functional analyses using knock-out mutants indicated no consequence to senescence progression. The transcription factor WARK75 was found to be specifically expressed during natural and dark-induced leaf senescence. Functional analysis demonstrated that in detached leaves senescence under darkness was significantly delayed while no phenotypic consequences could be observed on growth and development, including no effect on natural leaf senescence,. Thus, WARKY75 is suggested to have a role in dark-induced senescence, but not in natural senescence. Another regulatory gene identified to have a role in senescence is MKK9 encoding for a Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Kinase 9 which is upregulated during senescence in harvested leaves as well as in naturally senescing leaves. MKK9 can specifically phosphorylate another kinase, MPK6. Both knockouts of MKK9 and MPK6 displayed a significantly senescence delay in harvested leaves and possibly function as a phosphorelay that regulates senescence. To our knowledge, this is the first report that clearly demonstrates the involvement of a MAP kinase pathway in senescence. This research not only revealed a new signal transduction pathway, but more important provided significant insights into the regulatory mechanisms underlying senescence in harvested leaves. In an additional line of research we have employed the promoter of the senescence-induced BFN1 gene as a handle for identifying components of the regulatory mechanism. This gene was shown to be activated during darkinduced senescence of detached leaves, as well as natural senescence. This was shown by following protein accumulation and promoter activity which demonstrated that this promoter is activated during dark-induced senescence. Analysis of the promoter established that, at least some of the regulatory sequences reside in an 80 bps long fragment of the promoter. Overall, progress was made in identification of components with a role in dark-induced senescence in this project. Further studies should be done in order to better understand the function of these components and develop approaches for modulating the progress of senescence in crop plants for the benefit of agriculture.