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Updated: Aug 18, 2025

Catalytic Scavenging of Plant Reactive Oxygen Species In Vivo by Anionic Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles
Published on: August 26, 2018
Unique opportunities for future research on the alternative oxidase of plants
1Department of Biology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Ave. W., N2L 3C5 Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract:
Alternative oxidase (AOX) is a terminal oxidase present in the electron transport system of all plants examined to date that plays an important role in the responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. Due to recent advances in cell and tissue culture, genetic engineering, and bioinformatic resources for nonmodel plants, it is now possible to study AOX in a broader diversity of species to investigate the full taxonomic distribution of AOX in plants. Additional functions of AOX should be investigated in thermogenic, carnivorous, and parasitic plants with atypical life histories. Recent methodological improvements in oxygen sensing, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats technology, and protein biochemistry will allow for considerable advancement on questions that have been long standing in the field due to experimental limitations. The role of AOX in secondary metabolism and mitochondrial metabolic pathways should also be examined due to recent discoveries in analogous systems in other organelles and fungi.
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