Arabidopsis thaliana alcohol dehydrogenase is differently affected by several redox modifications.

In plant cells, many stresses, including low oxygen availability, result in a higher production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS). These molecules can lead to redox-dependent post-translational modification of proteins Cys residues. Here, we studied the effect of different redox modifications on alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) from Arabidopsis thaliana. ADH catalyzes the last step of the ethanol fermentation pathway used by plants to cope with energy deficiency during hypoxic stress. Arabidopsis suspension cell cultures showed decreased ADH activity upon exposure to H2O2, but not to the thiol oxidizing agent diamide. We purified recombinant ADH and observed a significant decrease in the enzyme activity by treatments with H2O2 and diethylamine NONOate (DEA/NO). Treatments leading to the formation of a disulfide bond between ADH and glutathione (protein S-glutathionylation) had no negative effect on the enzyme activity. LC-MS/MS analysis showed that Cys47 and Cys243 could make a stable disulfide bond with glutathione, suggesting redox sensitivity of these residues. Mutation of ADH Cys47 to Ser caused an almost complete loss of the enzyme activity while the Cys243 to Ser mutant had increased specific activity. Incubation of ADH with NAD+ or NADH prevented inhibition of the enzyme by H2O2 or DEA/NO. These results suggest that binding of ADH with its cofactors may limit availability of Cys residues to redox modifications. Our study demonstrates that ADH from A. thaliana is subject to different redox modifications. Implications of ADH sensitivity to ROS and RNS during hypoxic stress conditions are discussed.