Flexible change and cooperation between mitochondrial electron transport and cytosolic glycolysis as the basis for chilling tolerance in tomato plants.

To find if cytosolic glycolysis dynamical metabolism plays a role in mediating respiration homeostasis and its relationship with mitochondrial electron transport chain (miETC) flexibility, we selected two tomato genotypes that differ in chilling tolerance and compared the responses of miETC, cytosolic glycolysis and respiratory homeostasis at 7 °C. Our results showed that the transcripts of both classical and bypass component genes for miETC and glycolysis were comparable for both genotypes when grown at 25 °C. However, there was a rapid global increase in the expression of most respiratory genes in response to chilling at 7 °C for both genotypes. When normally grown plant was set as the control for each genotype, the transcripts of most COX family members, ATP synthase, AOX1b, and UCP are highly up-regulated in chilling-tolerant Zhefen No. 208 plants in contrast to the sensitive Zhefen No. 212 plants. Both genotypes mobilized the energy-saving sucrose synthase pathway for sucrose degradation by cytosolic glycolysis, but this mechanism is evidently more effective in tolerant Zhefen No. 208 plants. Furthermore, only Zhefen No. 208 plants were able to partially switch from low-energy efficiency pathways to ATP conserving pathways to carry out fructose-6-phosphate conversion and pyruvate production. This metabolic flexibility in miETC and cytosolic glycolysis were coupled to higher ATP synthesis and lower ROS accumulation, which may be essential for sustaining the higher leaf respiration and homeostasis of chilling-tolerant plants.