Regulation of Leaf Senescence by hormones and other factors

The senescence of leaves is an evolutionary advantageous process for plants. Although it may be thought that cell death in disadvantageous in reality it allows the plant to transfer nutrients from areas no longer required to those undergoing cell development, such as those involved in reproductive cell production. An example of leaf senescence is the decay of leaves on trees in the autumn, where nutrients are removed from the leaf and translocated to other parts of the plants.

Senescence can be thought of as the last process of cell development and is thus age dependent; additionally other factors both environmental, such as shade and pathogen response, and endogenous such as hormonal stimuli are known to be involved in senescence regulatory pathways. This section of plant biology advice takes a look into the role that hormones play in leaf senescence regulation.

Hormones involved in leaf senescence regulatory networks

Many hormones have been shown to be involved in the regulation of leaf senescence, these include cytokinins, abscisic acid, auxin, ethylene, jasmonic acid and salicyclic acid. Of especial interest is the senescence pathway regulated by the plant hormone salicyclic acid, as this shows a great similarity to that of which is seen in natural leaf senescence. It is thought that these phytohormones are able to regulate the initiation of senescence via the regulation of stress responsive genes.

Non-hormone regulation of leaf senescence

In addition to hormones, many other factors such as age dependent changes in sugar levels are known to have an impact upon the senescence process. There are many environmental aspects that affect the regulation of senescence such as analysis of light quality and temperature. This strongly suggests that genes involved in these processes may have an impact upon the control of senescence.

Additionally many genes have been identified as being differentially regulated in microarray during the senescence process. These include NAC proteins, one of which NAP has been shown to delay leaf senescence in Arabidopsis when mutated. Many genes involved in lipid metabolism such as the acyl hydrolase gene are also though to affect senescence.

More than 800 genes have been shown to be associated with senescence in Arabidopis, it is thought that a better understanding of how these genes are regulated, and of the proteins that they encode will further knowledge of the leaf senescence process.