Improved procedure for detection of superoxide dismutase isoforms in potato, Solanum tuberosum L

• Published in: Acta physiologiae plantarum 2014-08, Vol.36 (8), p.2059-2066
• Main Authors: Momčilović, Ivana, Pantelić, Danijel, Hfidan, Masoud, Savić, Jelena, Vinterhalter, Dragan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agriculture; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Life Sciences; Original Paper; Plant Anatomy/Development; Plant Biochemistry; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant Pathology; Plant Physiology
• ISSN: 0137-5881; 1861-1664
• DOI: 10.1007/s11738-014-1583-z

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) in-gel activity assay with selective inhibitors (KCN and H 2 O 2 ) is one of the most commonly used methods for identification of SOD isoform types, i.e., FeSOD, MnSOD or Cu/ZnSOD, and evaluation of oxidative stress response in plants. However, there are potential pitfalls that surround this assay, such as problem to detect isoforms with low activity, comigration of SOD isoforms or application of inappropriate inhibitor concentration. We propose an improved method based on the combination of in-gel analysis of SOD activity and native-PAGE immunoblotting for identification of isoforms and determination of SOD isoenzyme activity pattern in potato. Depending on cultivar and growing conditions, one MnSOD, 3 FeSOD and 5–6 Cu/ZnSOD isoforms were identified in potato leaves. The most important qualitative difference between ex vitro- and in vitro-grown plants was the presence of additional FeSOD and Cu/ZnSOD isoforms in plantlets grown in vitro. Compared with results of in-gel activity assay with selective inhibitors, new method allowed accurate identification of comigrating FeSOD and Cu/ZnSOD isoforms and two protein bands of ambiguous identities. Potato SODs were also characterized by SDS-PAGE immunoblotting and single MnSOD (23.6 kDa), three Cu/ZnSOD polypeptides (17.9, 17 and 16.3 kDa) and single FeSOD (25.1 kDa) polypeptide were detected in leaves of four examined cultivars. The difference in the number of FeSOD and Cu/ZnSOD isoforms/polypeptides between native-PAGE and SDS-PAGE immunoblots suggests that SOD proteins may have undergone post-translational modifications affecting protein mobility or existence of isoforms that differ from each other in total protein charge, but not in molecular weight.