Background: Ascorbic acid (Asc) is one of the most abundant antioxidants and it serves as a major contributor to protect plants against oxidative damage. Plants use two enzymes that participate in the metabolic recycling of Asc. One of these two enzymes is dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR). It directly regenerates Asc from its oxidized state and thus prevents Asc from being irreversibly hydrolyzed to 2, 3-diketogulonic acid. This study aimed to examine whether over-expression of DHAR leads to an enhanced oxidative stress tolerance in tobacco plants.

Results: In this study, We functionally characterized a novel JcDHAR gene from Jatropha curcas and found via quanitative RT-PCR analysis that JcDHAR can be induced with H2O2, salt and PEG stresses. The DHAR activities of transgenic tobacco plants increased 2.0 to 5.3 fold compared to wild-type plants. As a result, the transgenic plants displayed enhanced tolerance to oxidative stress.

Conclusions: Our results indicate that JcDHAR expression can effectively enhance the tolerance to oxidative stress in plants.