Senescence in Plants

Vicky Buchanan‐Wollaston, University of Warwick, Wellesbourne, UK

Published online: July 2007

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020133

Senescence is the final stage of plant development during which the plant reclaims the valuable cellular building blocks that have been deposited in the leaves and other parts of the plant during growth. Maintaining an efficient senescence process is essential for survival of the plant or its future generations. Senescence is a complex highly regulated process that requires new gene expression and involves the interactions of many signalling pathways.

Keywords: plant senescence; signalling pathways; stress responses; protein degradation

Figure 1. Illustrations of plant senescence: (a) Autumnal senescence in a beech wood, Derbyshire. (b) Total senescence in the entire wheat plant results in all mobilizable nutrients being stored in the grain. (c) Leaf senescence showing differential progression of senescence in the leaf. Areas close to the veins senesce last.
Figure 2. Changes in the Arabidopsis leaf during development. (a) Change in chlorophyll levels as senescence progresses (b) Change in visual appearance of leaf 7 harvested from Arabidopsis Col0 plants at different time points during development (c) Gene expression changes during leaf development. GeneSpring (Silicon Genetics) analysis shows two clusters of genes each line shows the changes in expression of a single gene, those in red show increased expression during development while those in blue show a decrease. SAG12 is one of the genes in the red cluster, several chlorophyll binding proteins and other photosynthetic proteins are in the blue cluster.
Figure 3. Potential functions of genes up or downregulated during senescence. Gene Ontology (GO) annotations were applied to the groups of genes that were either up or downregulated during senescence. Senescence enhanced genes (sen) are in pale green, while genes downregulated in senescence (MG) are shown in dark green. Functional classifications are shown under each pair of cones and the numbers of genes in each group are shown in the table below.
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 Further Reading
    Buchanan-Wollaston V, Earl S, Harrison E et al. (2003) The molecular analysis of plant senescence – a genomics approach. Plant Biotechnology Journal 1: 3–22.
    Buchanan-Wollaston V, Page T, Harrison E et al. (2005) Comparative transcriptome analysis reveals significant differences in gene expression and signalling pathways between developmental and dark/starvation induced senescence in Arabidopsis. Plant Journal 42: 7–585.
    Feller U and Fischer A (1994) Nitrogen metabolism in senescing leaves. Critical Reviews of Plant Science 13: 41–273.
    Gan S and Amasino RM (1996) Cytokinins in plant senescence: from spray and pray to clone and play. Bioessays 18: 557–565.
    book Gan S (2007) "Senescence processes in plants". Annual Plant Reviews vol. 26. Ames, IA: Blackwell Publishing
    Hortensteiner S (2006) Chlorophyll degradation during senescence. Annual Review of Plant Biology 57: 55–77.
    Hörtensteiner S and Feller U (2002) Nitrogen metabolism and remobilization during senescence. Journal of Experimental Botany 53: 927–937.
    Lim PO, Woo HR and Nam HG (2003) Molecular genetics of leaf senescence in Arabidopsis. Trends in Plant Science 8: 272–278.
    Thomas H and Stoddart J (1980) Leaf senescence. Annual Review of Plant Physiology 31: 83–111.
    Thomas H, Ougham H, Wagstaff C and Stead A (2003) Defining senescence and cell death. Journal of Experimental Botany 54: 1127–1132.

Related Sub-Topics:

Intracellular and Extracellular Signalling | Cell Death and Cellular Senescence | Leaves | Plant Development | Plant Genetics and Molecular Biology
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Article Title: Senescence in Plants
 
How to Cite close
Buchanan‐Wollaston, Vicky(Jul 2007) Senescence in Plants. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020133]