Abstract
Oxidative status alongside with antioxidant enzymes activities constantly evolve during fruit development. This evolution is closely related to hormones involved in fruit development and maturation. The antioxidant enzymes are superoxide dismutase (SOD) and Catalase (CAT) as well as those of Haliwell-Asada cycle (ascorbate peroxydase (APX), monodehydroascorbate reductase (MDHAR), dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR) and gluthation reductase (GR) which are also implicated in ascorbate recycling. The objective of this work is to decipher the interactions between oxidative stress induced by environmental stress in vegetative organs and ascorbate recycling in tomato fruits (cv Micro-Tom).Results obtained show that a rapid and controlled water deficit result in a fall in water potential (LΨw) whereas other water parameters remained unaffected and without any photo-oxidative symptoms detected in PS II after 24 hours. However we observed alongside an increase in H2O2 and of the activity of antioxidant enzymes as well as those involved in ascorbate recycling. Furthermore an increase in NO and ABA production was also detected in the plants in response to the stress. NO localisation was realised using fluorescence microscopy using the newly synthesised NO probe NO550 (developed during the thesis).We used a pharmacological approach in order to determine if NO is responsible of the set up of the antioxidant response together with ABA and H2O2. Results show an increase in the activity of the enzymes in contact with the three molecules with every time a greater increase with NO. Furthermore, we show that ABA induces NO production. Those results made us conclude that ABA production induced by the water deficit is responsible of NO synthesis in fruits and may have the action of a signal with activates antioxidant enzymes with the collaboration of H2O2.A microarray analysis was also conducted in order to study the genes induced by NO and the genes induced by water deficit through NO. Results suggest that NO is at the cross road of the response towards biotic and abiotic stress and might be a useful tool to acclimatize plant to stressful conditions.