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An adaptive measure of photosynthetic cells to a condition identified with a reduction of cellular energy charge, caused by water deficit-induced impairment of photosynthetic ATP production, was investigated using hydroponically cultured rice seedlings. Water stress treatment of the seedlings resulted in a marked decrease in cellular ATP level, a significant increase in the content of NAD(H) and concurrent decrease in that of NADP(H) in shoots, which accompanied a decrease in the activity of NAD kinase (EC 2.7.1.23) that specifically converts NAD(H) to NADP(H). The decline in the enzyme activity was particularly evident in the Ca^(2+)/calmodulin-dependent kinase, the major form of NAD kinase in plants, whereas the level of active calmodulin remained unchanged during water deficit. The ratio of NADP^+ to NADPH was maintained nearly constant and no increases were seen in the level of H₂O₂ and the activities of superoxide/H₂O₂-detoxifying enzymes in shoots stress-treated for two days. Based on these results, it may be suggested that rice plants take a strategy to cope with an adverse situation of limited photophosphorylation created by water deficit in that cells facilitate ATP production through glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation; in doing so, rice cells suppress NAD kinase activity, consequently up-sizing the NAD(H) pool at the expense of the NADP(H) pool. Several parameters associated with the stress symptoms are also of implicative that there is no overproduction of superoxide radical or the related active oxygen at least in rice seedlings.
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