Natural variation in tocochromanols content in Arabidopsis thaliana accessions - the effect of temperature and light intensity

In this study, 25 accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana originating from a variety of climate conditions were grown under controlled circumstances of different light intensity and temperature. The accessions were analyzed for prenyllipids content and composition, as well as expression of the genes involved in tocochromanol biosynthesis (vte1-5). It was found that the applied conditions did not strongly affect total tocochromanols content and there was no apparent correlation of the tocochromanol content with the origin of the accessions. However, the presented results indicate that the temperature, more than the light intensity, affects the expression of the vte1-5 genes and the content of some prenyllipids. An interesting observation was that under low growth temperature, the hydroxy-plastochromanol (PC-OH) to plastochromanol (PC) ratio was considerably increased regardless of the light intensity in most of the accessions. PC-OH is known to be formed as a result of singlet oxygen stress, therefore this observation indicates that the singlet oxygen production is enhanced under low temperature. Unexpectedly, the highest increase in the PC-OH/PC ratio was found for accessions originating from cold climate (Shigu, Krazo-1 and Lov-5), even though such plants could be expected to be more resistant to low temperature stress.