Pheophorbide May Regulate Jasmonate Signaling during Dark-Induced Senescence.

Chlorophyll degradation is one of the most visible signs of leaf senescence. During senescence, chlorophyll is degraded in the multistep pheophorbide oxygenase (PAO)/phyllobilin pathway. This pathway is tightly regulated at the transcriptional level, allowing coordinated and efficient remobilization of nitrogen toward sink organs. Using a combination of transcriptome and metabolite analyses during dark-induced senescence of Arabidopsis () mutants deficient in key steps of the PAO/phyllobilin pathway, we show an unanticipated role for one of the pathway intermediates, i.e. pheophorbide Both jasmonic acid-related gene expression and jasmonic acid precursors specifically accumulated in , a mutant deficient in PAO. We propose that pheophorbide , the last intact porphyrin intermediate of chlorophyll degradation and a unique pathway "bottleneck," has been recruited as a signaling molecule of chloroplast metabolic status. Our work challenges the assumption that chlorophyll breakdown is merely a result of senescence, and proposes that the flux of pheophorbide through the pathway acts in a feed-forward loop that remodels the nuclear transcriptome and controls the pace of chlorophyll degradation in senescing leaves.