Journal
MOLECULAR PLANT
Volume 10, Issue 3, Pages 456-469Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2016.10.003
Keywords
drought response; clade A PP2C; natural variation; ER stress signaling; maize (Zea Mays)
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [31561143014]
- Ministry of Science and Technology of China [2015BAD02B01]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China [2014PY056, 2662015PY170]
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Drought is a major abiotic stress that causes the yearly yield loss of maize, a crop cultured worldwide. Breeding drought-tolerant maize cultivars is a priority requirement of world agriculture. Clade A PP2C phosphatases (PP2C-A), which are conserved in most plant species, play important roles in abscisic acid (ABA) signaling and plant drought response. However, natural variations of PP2C-A genes that are directly associated with drought tolerance remain to be elucidated. Here, we conducted a candidate gene association analysis of the ZmPP2C-A gene family in a maize panel consisting of 368 varieties collected worldwide, and identified a drought responsive gene ZmPP2C-A10 that is tightly associated with drought tolerance. We found that the degree of drought tolerance of maize cultivars negatively correlates with the expression levels ofZmPP2C-A10. ZmPP2C-A10, like its Arabidopsis orthologs, interacts with ZmPYL ABA receptors and ZmSnRK2 kinases, suggesting that ZmPP2C-A10 is involved in mediating ABA signaling inmaize. Transgenic studies inmaize and Arabidopsis confirmed that ZmPP2C-A10 functions as a negative regulator of drought tolerance. Further, a causal natural variation, deletion allele-338, which bears a deletion of ERSE ( endoplasmic reticulum stress response element) in the 50-UTR region of ZmPP2C-A10, was detected. This deletion causes the loss of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-induced expression of ZmPP2C-A10, leading to increased plant drought tolerance. Our study provides direct evidence linking ER stress signaling with drought tolerance and genetic resources that can be used directly in breeding drought-tolerant maize cultivars.
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