Participation of hydrogen peroxide in elicitor-responsive photon emission from rice cells.

Biophoton emissions from suspension-cultured rice cells were elevated after treatment with N-acetylchitohexaose. We examined whether this elicitor-responsive photon emission was correlated with the generation of reactive oxygen species. The strength of elicitor-responsive photon emissions from cells agreed with the amounts of hydrogen peroxide in cell-cultured medium in a time-course study. Superoxide dismutase treatment did not affect the elicitor-responsive photon emissions, whereas catalase treatment suppressed the emission to 62% of the photon emission from cells in the medium without the enzymes. These results suggest that hydrogen peroxide partially contributes elicitor-responsive photon emissions.