biologia plantarum

Biologia plantarum 59:554-559, 2015 | DOI: 10.1007/s10535-015-0508-z

Europium improves the transport of quercetin through Arabidopsis thaliana

I. Šola^1,*, I. Piantanida², I. Crnolatac^2,*, G. Rusak¹

¹ Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

² Division of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, RuĐer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia

The effect of a rare earth element europium (Eu) on the long-distance transport of a plant defence compound quercetin (Q) was investigated. The complex Q/Eu³⁺ was synthesized in a HEPES buffer and tested for its transport ability through Arabidopsis thaliana and its ability to interact with target molecules in plant cells. Our results show that complexation with Eu³⁺ enhanced the transport of Q through Arabidopsis roots. During the transport, the complex degraded and released a free Q to tissues where Q was originally not available. Thus, the plant became better supplied with the defensive compound Q. The obtained spectrophotometric data imply that one of the reasons for the Q/Eu³⁺ degradation was the interaction of the complex with double stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) present in Arabidopsis. Since dsRNAs are replicative forms of plant RNA viruses, the ability of Q/Eu³⁺ to release a free Q in their presence suggests further investigation of this complex as a potential antiviral agent.

Keywords: antiviral agents; long-distance movement; polyphenols; Q, Eu³⁺ complex

Subjects: europium; quercitin; antiviral agents; polyphenols

Species: Arabidopsis thaliana

Received: July 23, 2014; Revised: October 23, 2014; Accepted: December 1, 2014; Published: September 1, 2015Show citation