Heavy metals in the environment are one of the major limiting factors affecting plant growth and development. However, the mechanisms of the heavy metal-induced physiological processes remain to be fully dissected. Here, we explored that SRO1 can physically interact with Glutathione Peroxidase 3 (GPX3) in Arabidopsis. Under Hg treatment, similar to the sro1, the growth of the gpx3/sro1 was repressed more seriously and the number of true leaves was more reduced and etiolated than that of the wild type and gpx3 plants. The electrolyte leakage rates showed that cell membrane integrity in gpx3/sro1 was damaged more severely than in the wild type and gpx3 mutant. The Real-time PCR results have shown that the expression of the APX1 and CAT3 was reduced under mercury stress in the sro1 and sro1/gpx3. Our results suggested that the combination of the SRO1 and GPX3 may be contributed to plant response to mercury stress by regulating ROS intracellular oxidative homeostasis.
Keywords: GPX3; SRO1; heavy metal stress; interaction; mercury.