Cinnamic Acid Increases Lignin Production and Inhibits Soybean Root Growth.docVIP

Cinnamic Acid Increases Lignin Production and Inhibits Soybean Root Growth Victor Hugo Salvador, Rogério Barbosa Lima, Wanderley Dantas dos Santos, Anderson Ricardo Soares, Paulo Alfredo Feitoza B?hm, Rogério Marchiosi, Maria de Lourdes Lucio Ferrarese, Osvaldo Ferrarese- Filho * Laboratory of Plant Biochemistry, University of Maringá, Maringá, Paraná, Brazil Abstract Cinnamic acid is a known allelochemical that affects seed germination and plant root growth and therefore influences several metabolic processes. In the present work, we evaluated its effects on growth, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) oxidase and cinnamate 4-hydroxylase (C4H) activities and lignin monomer composition in soybean (Glycine max) roots. The results revealed that exogenously applied cinnamic acid inhibited root growth and increased IAA oxidase and C4H activities. The allelochemical increased the total lignin content, thus altering the sum and ratios of the p- hydroxyphenyl (H), guaiacyl (G), and syringyl (S) lignin monomers. When applied alone or with cinnamic acid, piperonylic acid (PIP, a quasi-irreversible inhibitor of C4H) reduced C4H activity, lignin and the H, G, S monomer content compared to the cinnamic acid treatment. Taken together, these results indicate that exogenously applied cinnamic acid can be channeled into the phenylpropanoid pathway via the C4H reaction, resulting in an increase in H lignin. In conjunction with enhanced IAA oxidase activity, these metabolic responses lead to the stiffening of the cell wall and are followed by a reduction in soybean root growth. Citation: Salvador VH, Lima RB, dos Santos WD, Soares AR, B?hm PAF, et al. (2013) Cinnamic Acid Increases Lignin Production and Inhibits Soybean Root Growth. PLoS ONE 8(7): e69105. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0069105 Editor: Miguel A Blazquez, Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas, Spain Received March 19, 2013; Accepted June 6, 2013; Published July 2