A new look at stress: abscisic acid patterns and dynamics at high-resolution

Abscisic acid (ABA) is a key phytohormone promoting abiotic stress tolerance as well as developmental processes such as seed dormancy. A spatiotemporal map of ABA concentrations would greatly advance our understanding of the cell type and timing of ABA action. Organ and tissue-level ABA measurements, as well as indirect in vivo measurements such as cell-specific transcriptional analysis of ABA metabolic enzymes and ABA-responsive promoters, have all contributed to current views of the localization and timing of ABA accumulations. Recently developed Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) biosensors for ABA that sense ABA levels directly promise to add unprecedented resolution to in vivo ABA spatiotemporal mapping and expand our knowledge of the mechanisms controlling ABA levels in space and time.