Coreceptors of abscisic acid and their SnRK2 protein kinase targets as regulators of plant metabolism and growth
Final Report Abstract
Plants manage their growth, development and metabolism in response to environmental cues, such as light, temperature and water, and plant hormones (phytohormones) serve as important endogenous signals for coordinating these processes. Abscisic acid (ABA) is the phytohormone that accumulates in dry seeds and vegetative tissues in response to water shortage, such as drought stress, and the molecular mechanism of its perception and signal transduction has been studied, especially in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis). However, besides the roles of ABA in stress responses, little attention has been paid to its role in plant growth and metabolism. In this project, I aimed to unveil how plants manage their growth and metabolism using ABA as a signal and performed a series of experiments to identify crucial signaling components. In addition to the core components of ABA signaling, namely receptors, coreceptors and kinases, the results obtained in this project showed that exterior components, such as ABA-unresponsive kinases and coreceptors’ interacting proteins, were likely involved in regulating ABA signaling and plant growth. In particular, our large-scale analyses revealed that phosphoproteomic, proteomic and metabolite profiles were altered in the Arabidopsis overexpressing ABA receptors. Moreover, integrative analyses depicted a global signaling network governed by ABA and exhibited uncharacterized kinases and metabolic enzymes possibly functioning in response to ABA. Collectively, this project extended our knowledge about ABA signaling and suggested that ABA is involved in various processes associated with growth and metabolism beyond a stress hormone.
Publications
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Hormonal regulation of plant primary metabolism under drought. Journal of Experimental Botany, 75(6), 1714-1725.
Yoshida, Takuya & Fernie, Alisdair R.
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Integrating multi‐omics data reveals energy and stress signaling activated by abscisic acid in Arabidopsis. The Plant Journal, 119(2), 1112-1133.
Yoshida, Takuya; Mergner, Julia; Yang, Zhenyu; Liu, Jinghui; Kuster, Bernhard; Fernie, Alisdair R. & Grill, Erwin
