Overexpression of the vascular brassinosteroid receptor BRL3 confers drought resistance without penalizing plant growth
Fábregas, Norma (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Lozano Elena, Fidel (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Blasco Escámez, David (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Tohge, Takayuki (NAIST Graduate school of Biological Sciences)
Martínez Andújar, Cristina (CEBAS-CSIC)
Albacete, Alfonso (CEBAS-CSIC)
Osorio, Sonia (Universidad de Málaga)
Bustamante Montoya, Mariana (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Riechmann, José Luis (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Nomura, Takahito (Utsunomiya University)
Yokota, Takao (Teikyo University)
Conesa, Ana (University of Florida)
Pérez Alfocea, Francisco (CEBAS-CSIC)
Fernie, Alisdair (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology)
Caño Delgado, Ana I. (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)

Date:	2018
Abstract:	Drought represents a major threat to food security. Mechanistic data describing plant responses to drought have been studied extensively and genes conferring drought resistance have been introduced into crop plants. However, plants with enhanced drought resistance usually display lower growth, highlighting the need for strategies to uncouple drought resistance from growth. Here, we show that overexpression of BRL3, a vascular-enriched member of the brassinosteroid receptor family, can confer drought stress tolerance in Arabidopsis. Whereas loss-of-function mutations in the ubiquitously expressed BRI1 receptor leads to drought resistance at the expense of growth, overexpression of BRL3 receptor confers drought tolerance without penalizing overall growth. Systematic analyses reveal that upon drought stress, increased BRL3 triggers the accumulation of osmoprotectant metabolites including proline and sugars. Transcriptomic analysis suggests that this results from differential expression of genes in the vascular tissues. Altogether, this data suggests that manipulating BRL3 expression could be used to engineer drought tolerant crops.
Grants:	Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad SEV-2015-0533 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014/SGR-1406 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BIO2013-43873 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BIO2016-78150-P European Commission 683163 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad AGL2014-59728-R European Commission 289365 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación RYC-09170 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BES-2012-053274 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BFU2014-58289-P European Commission 612583
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Arabidopsis ; Droughts ; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant ; Metabolome ; Mutation ; Osmotic Pressure ; Plant Development ; Plant Roots ; Plant Vascular Bundle ; Plants, Genetically Modified ; Receptors, Cell Surface ; Stress, Physiological ; Transcription, Genetic ; Tropism
Published in:	Nature communications, Vol. 9 (November 2018) , art. 4680, ISSN 2041-1723

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06861-3
PMID: 30409967

13 p, 3.4 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CRAG (Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles