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Stay-green plants: what do they tell us about the molecular mechanism of leaf senescence

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Abstract

A practical approach to increasing crop yields is to extend the duration of active photosynthesis. Stay-green is a term that is used to describe mutant and transgenic plants or cultivars with the trait of maintaining their leaves for a longer period of time than the wild-type or crosses from which they are derived. Analyzing stay-green genotypes contributes to our understanding of the molecular mechanism regulating leaf senescence which may allow us to extend the duration of active photosynthesis in crop plants. This article summarizes recent studies on stay-green plants and the insights they provide on the mechanism of leaf senescence. Briefly, mutations suppressing ethylene, abscisic acid, brassinosteroid, and strigolactone signal transduction or those activating cytokinin signaling often lead to stay-green phenotypes indicating a complex signaling network regulating leaf senescence. Developmentally regulated transcription factors, including NAC or WRKY family members, play key roles in the induction of leaf senescence and thus alteration in the activity of these transcription factors also result in stay-green phenotypes. Impairment in the enzymatic steps responsible for chlorophyll breakdown also leads to stay-green phenotypes. Some of these genotypes die in the middle of the process of chlorophyll breakdown due to the accumulation of toxic intermediates, while others appear to stay-green but their photosynthetic activity declines in a manner similar to wild-type plants. Alterations in certain metabolic pathways in chloroplasts (e.g., photosynthesis) can lead to a delayed onset of leaf senescence with maintenance of photosynthetic activity longer than wild-type plants, indicating that chloroplast metabolism can also affect the regulatory mechanism of leaf senescence.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Yumi Nagashima and Hiroshi Yamatani (Hiroshima University) for the photographs in Fig. 1a and helpful discussion. We also thank Junko Kishimoto (Hokkaido University) for the photograph in Fig. 1b and the illustration that was used in Fig. 2. We would like to note that, while we were writing this manuscript, we have been inspired by the excellent review articles by Thomas and his coworkers (Thomas and Howarth 2000; Thomas et al. 2002; Thomas 2013).

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  1. Graduate School of Science, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8526, Japan

    Makoto Kusaba

  2. Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST), Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST), Chuou-ku, Tokyo, 113-0027, Japan

    Makoto Kusaba, Ayumi Tanaka & Ryouichi Tanaka

  3. Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0819, Japan

    Ayumi Tanaka & Ryouichi Tanaka

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  1. Makoto Kusaba
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Correspondence to Ryouichi Tanaka.

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Kusaba, M., Tanaka, A. & Tanaka, R. Stay-green plants: what do they tell us about the molecular mechanism of leaf senescence. Photosynth Res 117, 221–234 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-013-9862-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-013-9862-x

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