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Uptake and conversion of d-amino acids in Arabidopsis thaliana

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Abstract

The d-enantiomers of proteinogenic amino acids fulfill essential functions in bacteria, fungi and animals. Just in the plant kingdom, the metabolism and role of d-amino acids (d-AAs) still remains unclear, although plants have to cope with significant amounts of these compounds from microbial decay in the rhizosphere. To fill this gap of knowledge, we tested the inhibitory effects of d-AAs on plant growth and established a method to quantitate 16 out of 19 proteinogenic amino acids and their d-enantiomers in plant tissue extracts. Therefore, the amino acids in the extracts were derivatized with Marfey’s reagent and separated by HPLC–MS. We used two ecotypes (Col-0 and C24) and a mutant (lht1) of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana to determine the influence and fate of exogenously applied d-AAs. All of them were found in high concentrations in the plant extracts after application, even in lht1, which points to additional transporters facilitating the import of d-AAs. The addition of particular amino acids (d-Trp, d-Phe, d-Met and d-His) led to the accumulation of the corresponding l-amino acid. In almost all cases, the application of a d-AA resulted in the accumulation of d-Ala and d-Glu. The presented results indicate that soil borne d-AAs can actively be taken up and metabolized via central metabolic routes.

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Acknowledgments

Seed stocks of Col-0, C24 and lht1-1 were kindly provided by Dierk Wanke and Friederike Ladwig. (ZMBP, University of Tübingen). We thank Sandra Klehn and Grit Ulrich for their excellent technical assistance and Laura von Brzezinski and Franziska Retz (Innerstädtisches Gymnasium Rostock, Germany) for their initial works. We would like to thank the Federal Ministry of Education and Research Germany (BMBF) for the financial support of this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Automation, University of Rostock, Richard-Wagner-Str. 31, 18119, Rostock, Germany

    Dirk Gördes

  2. Center for Life Science Automation (celisca), University of Rostock, Friedrich-Barnewitz-Str. 8, 18119, Rostock, Germany

    Üner Kolukisaoglu & Kerstin Thurow

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  1. Dirk Gördes
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  2. Üner Kolukisaoglu
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  3. Kerstin Thurow
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Correspondence to Üner Kolukisaoglu.

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Gördes, D., Kolukisaoglu, Ü. & Thurow, K. Uptake and conversion of d-amino acids in Arabidopsis thaliana . Amino Acids 40, 553–563 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-010-0674-4

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