Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Biology and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
  • 2 State College Area High School, State College, PA, 16801, USA
  • 3 Department of Biology and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA. hxm16@psu.edu
  • 4 Department of Biology and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA. zxs6@psu.edu
Plant Mol Biol, 2019 Jan;99(1-2):161-174.
PMID: 30604322 DOI: 10.1007/s11103-018-0810-1

Abstract

KEY MESSAGE: Morphological and transcriptomic evidences provide us strong support for the function of ANAC019 in reproductive development under drought stress. Plants are sensitive to drought conditions, particularly at the reproductive stage. Several studies have reported drought effects on crop reproductive development, but the molecular mechanism underlying drought response during reproduction is still unclear. A recent study showed that drought induces in Arabidopsis inflorescence increased expression of many genes, including ANAC019. However, the function of ANAC019 in drought response during reproductive development has not been characterized. Here, we report an investigation of the ANAC019 function in the response to drought during reproduction. ANAC019 is preferentially expressed in the inflorescence compared with the leaf, suggesting possible roles in regulating both stress response and flower development. The anac019 mutant was more sensitive to drought than WT plant, and exhibited a delay in recovery of floral organ development under prolonged drought stress. Moreover, many fewer genes were differentially expressed in the anac019 inflorescence under drought than that of WT, suggesting that the mutant was impaired in drought-induced gene expression. The genes affected by ANAC019 were associated with stress and hormone responses as well as floral development. In particular, the expression levels of several key drought-induced genes, DREB2A, DREB2B, ARF2, MYB21 and MYB24, were dramatically reduced in the absence of ANAC019, suggesting that ANAC019 is an upstream regulator these genes for drought response and flower development. These results provide strong support for the potential function of ANAC019 in reproductive development under drought stress.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.