Background Short cold periods comprise a challenge to plant growth and development. Series of cold stresses improve plant performance upon a future cold stress. This effect could be provoked by priming, training or acclimation dependent hardening. Here, we compared the effect of 24 h (short priming stimulus) and of 2 week long cold-pretreatment (long priming stimulus) on the response of Arabidopsis thaliana to a single 24 h cold stimulus (triggering) after a 5 day long lag-phase, to test Arabidopsis for cold primability. Results Three types of pretreatment dependent responses were observed: (1) The CBF-regulon controlled gene COR15A was stronger activated only after long-term cold pretreatment. (2) The non-chloroplast specific stress markers PAL1 and CHS were more induced by cold after long-term and slightly stronger expressed after short-term cold priming. (3) The chloroplast ROS signaling marker genes ZAT10 and BAP1 were less activated by the triggering stimulus in primed plants. The effects on ZAT10 and BAP1 were more pronounced in 24 h cold-primed plants than in 14 day long cold-primed ones demonstrating independence of priming from induction and persistence of primary cold acclimation responses. Transcript and protein abundance analysis and studies in specific knock-out lines linked the priming-specific regulation of ZAT10 and BAP1 induction to the priming-induced long-term regulation of stromal and thylakoid-bound ascorbate peroxidase (sAPX and tAPX) expression. Conclusion The plastid antioxidant system, especially, plastid ascorbate peroxidase regulation, transmits information on a previous cold stress over time without the requirement of establishing cold-acclimation. We hypothesize that the plastid antioxidant system serves as a priming hub and that priming-dependent regulation of chloroplast-to-nucleus ROS signaling is a strategy to prepare plants under unstable environmental conditions against unpredictable stresses by supporting extra-plastidic stress protection.
