Abstract:By using the tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum cv. Bright Yellow-2) cell suspension culture, we studied the roles of extracellular H2O2 and NADPH oxidase in the copper-induced cell death. With the increase of exogenous CuCl2 from 0 to 700 μmol·L-1, the level of cell death were increased followed by the increase of extracellular H2O2. In the cell subjected to 300 μmol·L-1 CuCl2, the addition of exogenous dimethyl thiourea (DMTU, a scavenger of H2O2) alleviated the increases of both the cell death level and the production of extracellular H2O2, which were induced by CuCl2(300 μmol·L-1). The copperinduced increase in the cell death was associated with the increase of extracellular H2O2. The CuCl2(300 μmol·L-1) stress induced an increase of the activity of NADPH oxidase. The addition of diphenylene iodonium (DPI, an inhibitor of NADPH oxidase) alleviated the increases of both the cell death level and the production of extracellular H2O2, which were induced by CuCl2 (300 μmol·L-1). Our results indicate that extracellular H2O2 and NADPH oxidase are involved in the copper-induced cell death.