Redox signaling and environmental stress in plants

Our group studies the involvement of thioredoxins (Trxs) and thioredoxin reductases (NTRs) in mechanisms of redox regulation in plants, focusing on the function of NTRC, an enzyme first described by our group (Serrato et al. (2004) J. Biol. Chem. 279:43821-43827). Recently, we have proposed a novel model for chloroplast redox regulation according to which, the reductive activation of biosynthetic enzymes in this organelle depends of the redox state of 2-Cys peroxiredoxin, an enzyme that reduces hydrogen peroxide to water (Pérez-Ruiz et al. (2017) PNAS 114:12069-12074). Based on this model, we have identified the participation of 2-Cys peroxiredoxins in the oxidative deactivation of chloroplast enzymes in the dark (Ojeda et al. (2018) Mol. Plant 11:1377-1388), thus providing the response to a long-lasting question since the light-darkness regulatory mechanism was discovered back in the decade of the 60s of the past century.