Nitrate Reductase-Mediated Nitric Oxide Regulates the Leaf Shape in Arabidopsis by Mediating the Homeostasis of Reactive Oxygen Species

As a gaseous biological signaling molecule, nitric oxide (NO) regulates many physiological processes in plants. Over the last decades, this low molecular weight compound has been identified as a key signaling molecule to regulate plant stress responses, and also plays an important role in plant development. However, elucidation of the molecular mechanisms for NO in leaf development has so far been limited due to a lack of mutant resources. Here, we employed the NO-deficient mutant nia1nia2 to examine the role of NO in leaf development. We have found that nia1nia2 mutant plants displayed very different leaf phenotypes as compared to wild type Col-0. Further studies have shown that reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels are higher in nia1nia2 mutant plants. Interestingly, ROS-related enzymes ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalases (CAT), and peroxidases (POD) have shown decreases in their activities. Our transcriptome data have revealed that the ROS synthesis gene RBOHD was enhanced in nia1nia2 mutants and the photosynthesis-related pathway was impaired, which suggests that NO is required for chloroplast development and leaf development. Together, these results imply that NO plays a significant role in plant leaf development by regulating ROS homeostasis.