Synergism between ozone and light stress: structural responses of polyphenols in a woody Brazilian species

• The ozone-light stress affects the distribution of polyphenols on leaf tissues.
• Aspects of stress-induced polyphenols were compared to those from secretory glands.
• Dense aspect of polyphenols precedes PCD in constitutive and stress-induced defenses.
• There is homology of process between polyphenols from chlorenchyma and glands.

Microscopic studies on isolated ozone (O3) effects or on those in synergy with light stress commonly report the induction of polyphenols that exhibit different aspects within the vacuole of photosynthesizing cells. It has been assumed that these different aspects are randomly spread in the symptomatic (injured) regions of the leaf blade. Interestingly, secretory ducts that constitutively produce polyphenols also exhibit these same variations in their vacuolar aspect, in a spatial sequence related to the destiny of these cells (e.g., programmed cell death (PCD) in lytic secretion processes). Here, we demonstrate that the deposition pattern of polyphenols prior to the establishment of the hypersensitive-like response, a type of PCD caused by O3, follows the same one observed in the epithelial cells of the constitutive lysigenous secretory ducts. Astronium graveolens, an early secondary Brazilian woody species, was selected based on its susceptibility to high light and presence of secretory ducts. The synergism effects were assessed by exposing plants to the high O3 concentrations at an urban site in São Paulo City. Confocal, widefield and light microscopies were used to examine polyphenols' occurrence and aspects. The spatial pattern of polyphenols distribution along the leaflets of plants submitted to the synergism condition, in which a dense vacuolar aspect is the target of a cell destined to death, was also observed in the constitutive secretory cells prior to lysis. This similar structural pattern may be a case of homology of process involving both the constitutive (secretory ducts) and the induced (photosynthesizing cells) defenses.