Effect of abiotic stress on the abundance of different vitamin B6 vitamers in tobacco plants

There are six different vitamin B6 (VB6) forms, pyridoxal (PL), pyridoxamine (PM), pyridoxine (PN), pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP), pyridoxamine 5′-phosphate (PMP), and pyridoxine 5′-phosphate (PNP), of which PLP is the active form. Although transcriptional regulation of the genes involved in the de novo and salvage pathways of PLP syntheses after stress treatments has been described for Arabidopsis thaliana and tobacco plants, it remains open as to whether this in turn affects VB6 levels. In this study, the effects of chilling, UV radiation, intensity of illumination, osmotic pressure, oxidative and drought stresses on the abundance of different B6 vitamers in tobacco plants were examined by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The abiotic stressors resulted in significant increase of PLP, and caused some corresponding changes with PL and PN. The highest increase of PLP was 2.5-fold compared to the control plants, followed by a continuous decline back to the control levels. These changes are presumably caused by the regulation and control mechanism on the VB6 metabolism in plants.