Abstract

Drought stress is a major threat to crop production, but effective methods to mitigate the adverse effects of drought are not available. Here, we report that adding fluorine atoms in the benzyl ring of the abscisic acid (ABA) receptor agonist AM1 optimizes its binding to ABA receptors by increasing the number of hydrogen bonds between the compound and the surrounding amino acid residues in the receptor ligand-binding pocket. The new chemicals, known as AMFs, have long-lasting effects in promoting stomatal closure and inducing the expression of stress-responsive genes. Application of AMFs or transgenic overexpression of the receptor PYL2 in Arabidopsis and soybean plants confers increased drought resistance. The greatest increase in drought resistance is achieved when AMFs are applied to the PYL2-overexpression transgenic plants. Our results demonstrate that the combining of potent chemicals with transgenic overexpression of an ABA receptor is very effective in helping plants combat drought stress.

Details

Title
Combining chemical and genetic approaches to increase drought resistance in plants
Author
Min-Jie Cao 1 ; Yu-Lu, Zhang 1 ; Liu, Xue 1 ; Huang, Huan 1 ; Zhou, X Edward 2 ; Wen-Long, Wang 1 ; Zeng, Ai 1 ; Chun-Zhao, Zhao 3 ; Tong, Si 3 ; Du, Jiamu 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Wen-Wu, Wu 1 ; Fu-Xing, Wang 1 ; Xu, H Eric 4 ; Jian-Kang, Zhu 5 

1  Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology and Center of Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China 
2  Laboratory of Structural Sciences, Center for Structural Biology and Drug Discovery, Van Andel Research Institute, Grand Rapids, MI, USA 
3  Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA 
4  Laboratory of Structural Sciences, Center for Structural Biology and Drug Discovery, Van Andel Research Institute, Grand Rapids, MI, USA; VARI-SIMM Center, Center for Structure and Function of Drug Targets, Key Laboratory of Receptor Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China 
5  Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology and Center of Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA 
Pages
1-12
Publication year
2017
Publication date
Oct 2017
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01239-3
ProQuest document ID
1957754362
Copyright
© 2017. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.