Germination is a crucial process in crop plant life cycle that determines future yield. Hydrogen peroxide plays a significant role in both dormancy release and seed ageing. The potential of the rapeseed metallothioneins (BnMT1‐4) as reactive oxygen species scavengers was investigated. In the presence of H₂O₂, bacterial cells expressing BnMT1‐4 had higher growth rate than control cells. However, such effect was not observed in an oxidative stress oversensitive yap‐1Δ yeast mutant strain expressing BnMT1‐4. Next, it was shown that H₂O₂, up to 100 and 10 mM, promotes rapeseed germination rate and seedling growth, respectively. Moreover, it was demonstrated that in seeds germinating in the presence of H₂O_2, the expression of seed‐specific BnMT4 decreases to a high extent in a dose‐ and time‐dependent manner. It was shown that the decline in BnMT4 mRNA level, accelerated by up to 10 mM H₂O₂ treatment, correlates positively with increased rapeseed germination and early growth, underscoring the plausible role of BnMT4 as a H₂O₂ scavenging protein that level has to be downregulated in conditions where the compound is needed. Finally, it was demonstrated that H₂O₂ could be used as a priming agent of rapeseeds.

中文翻译：

---

油菜金属硫蛋白可能参与过氧化氢诱导的种子活力调节

发芽是作物生命周期中决定未来产量的关键过程。过氧化氢在休眠释放和种子老化中都起着重要作用。研究了油菜金属硫蛋白（Bn MT1-4）作为活性氧清除剂的潜力。在存在H ₂ O ₂的情况下，表达Bn MT1-4的细菌细胞的生长速率要高于对照细胞。但是，在表达Bn MT1-4的氧化应激过分敏感的yap-1Δ酵母突变株中未观察到这种作用。接下来，表明H ₂ O ₂高达100和10 mM的油菜籽分别促进油菜发芽率和幼苗生长。此外，已证明在H ₂ O ₂存在下发芽的种子中，种子特异性BnMT4的表达在很大程度上取决于剂量和时间。研究表明，BnMT4 mRNA水平的下降（由高达10 mM H ₂ O ₂处理加速）与油菜籽发芽的增加和早期生长呈正相关，强调了Bn MT4作为H ₂ O ₂的合理作用。在需要该化合物的条件下，清除该蛋白的水平必须下调。最后，证明了H ₂ O ₂可用作油菜的引发剂。