Sa. Heckathorn et al., NITROGEN AVAILABILITY ALTERS PATTERNS OF ACCUMULATION OF HEAT STRESS-INDUCED PROTEINS IN PLANTS, Oecologia, 105(3), 1996, pp. 413-418
Mounting evidence suggests that heat-shock proteins (HSPs) play a vita
l role in enhancing survival at high temperature. There is, however, c
onsiderable variation in patterns of HSP production among species, and
even among and within individuals of a species. It is not known why t
his variation exists and to what extent variation in HSPs among organi
sms might be related to differences in thermotolerance. One possibilit
y is that production of HSPs confers costs and natural selection has w
orked towards optimizing the cost-to-benefits of HSP synthesis and acc
umulation. However, the costs of this production have not been determi
ned. If HSP production confers significant nitrogen (N) costs, then we
reasoned that plants grown under low-N conditions might accumulate le
ss HSP than high-N plants. Furthermore, if HSPs are related to thermot
olerance, then variation in HSPs induced by N (or other factors) might
correlate with variation in thermotolerance, here measured as short-t
erm effects of heat stress on net CO2 assimilation and photosystem LI
(PSII) function. To test these predictions, we grew individuals of a s
ingle variety of corn (Zea mays L.) under different N levels and then
exposed the plants to acute heat stress. We found that: (1) high-N pla
nts produced greater amounts of mitochondrial Hsp60 and chloroplastic
Hsp24 per unit protein than their low-N counterparts; and (2) patterns
of HSP production were related to PSII efficiency, as measured by F-v
/F-m. Thus, our results indicate that N availability influences HSP pr
oduction in higher plants suggesting that HSP production might be reso
urce-limited, and that among other benefits, chloroplast HSPs (e.g., H
sp24) may in some way limit damage to PSII function during heat stress
.