Exogenous Calcium Alleviates the Photosynthetic Inhibition and Oxidative Damage of the Tea Plant under Cold Stress
2024
Siwen Chen | Long Wang | Rui Kang | Chunhui Liu | Liyuan Xing | Shaobo Wu | Zhihui Wang | Chunlai Wu | Qiongqiong Zhou | Renliang Zhao
Calcium (Ca<sup>2+</sup>), a second messenger, plays a crucial role in plant growth and development as well as in responding to biotic and abiotic stresses. In this work, we explored the role of exogenous calcium in alleviating cold stress and examined the relationship between calcium chloride (CaCl<sub>2</sub>) and calcium channel blockers, lanthanum chloride (LaCl<sub>3</sub>), in tea plants under cold stress at the physiological and transcriptional levels. Exogenous Ca<sup>2+</sup> partially offsets the negative impacts of cold stress which increased the tolerance of tea plants by significantly raising the photochemical efficiency of PSII, protective enzyme activities, and the ABA content, which reduced the relative electrical conductivity (REC) level and the malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration. At the transcriptome level, exogenous Ca<sup>2+</sup> significantly enhanced the expression of key genes involved in cold response pathways. Nevertheless, LaCl<sub>3</sub> treatment not only significantly inhibited the activities of antioxidant enzymes including superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD) and catalase (CAT), but also increased cold damage. This study aims to provide essential insight into the role of exogenous Ca<sup>2+</sup> in tea plants responding to cold stress, and to better understand the molecular mechanisms that facilitate Ca-mediated cold tolerance.
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