Extracellular ATP and nitric oxide impact on cell viability in tomato suspension cells

Abstract

Adenosine triphosphate has been largely studied as an energetic intracellular molecule in plants. However there is growing evidences that extracellular metabolism of ATP has a great impact on plant cell physiology. In this work, we demonstrate that tomato cell suspensions (Solanum lycopersicum 'Money Maker'; line Msk8) release ATP into the medium. We have analyzed the extracellular ATP levels in labeled tomato cells. We detected eATP and determined that the half-life of eATP is approximately 30 min. Different concentrations of eATP metabolizying enzyme, apyrase was added to tomato cell cutures an NO production was measured. Apyrase treatments trigger NO production in a dose-dependent manner. Depletion of eATP by apyrase resulted in a reduced tomato cell viability.