Metabolic pathways involved in the regulation of bioactive cytokinin levels in plants

SummarySummarySummarySummary Cytokinins (CKs) are important group of plant hormones involved in a wide range of physiological and developmental processes. Endogenous levels of CKs as well as proportions of individual CK forms and derivatives are not constant and differ among plant species. The amounts of biological active CK forms (free bases and ribosides) are regulated through tangled machinery of metabolic conversions including biosynthesis, conjugation and degradation pathways. The main object of this thesis was to characterize the metabolic pathways involved in the regulation of bioactive CK levels in plants especially via CK biosynthesis with aspect to the environmental stimuli and via N- glucosylation pathway. It was shown, that light signal is an important input for modulating some CK-related genes and CK levels in Arabidopsis plants. The complex diurnal expression profiles of CK-biosynthetic genes (AtIPT1 - AtIPT9) in Arabidopsis plants indicated a strong dependence of AtIPT1 and AtIPT5 on light/dark phase in leaf rossetes. In contrast, no diurnal oscillation of AtIPT transcript levels was recorded in roots. Although the content of endogenous CKs was not constant in plants and varied during a day, no statistically significant correlation between light/dark cycle and oscillation in CK levels was..