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Ethylene-insensitive mutants of Nicotiana tabacum exhibit drought stress resistance

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Abstract

Drought is one of the major environmental stresses that profoundly affect crop growth and yield. The gaseous hormone ethylene is believed to be critical for plant growth and drought tolerance. Based on the dark-grown seedling response to ethylene, a genetic screen for tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) mutants on medium supplemented with ACC (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid), the precursor of ethylene, was performed. Among the ethylene insensitive mutants that were isolated, drought resistant mutants were subsequently obtained via screening on mannitol-containing medium. Phenotypic analyses revealed that these mutants exhibited enhanced drought resistance, having a higher percentage survival rate under conditions of severe water deficit, and better growth under mannitol osmotic stress. In the mutants, the leaf water loss rate was lowered and the leaf stomatal aperture was decreased. In addition, increases in peroxidase and superoxide dismutase activities and a higher accumulation of total soluble sugar and proline were detected in the mutant plants. The corresponding expression change of tobacco NtAP2 (APETALA2 in Nicotiana tabacum, homologous with AtAP2 from Arabidopsis thaliana) and NtERF (ethylene response factor in N. tabacum) genes was examined in the plants in response to air-drying treatments. Our study provides an applicable approach for the mutant screening of drought resistant plants, and the results suggest a crucial function of ethylene in plant drought tolerance.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Guanshan Liu and Dr. Rongfeng Guo (Tobacco Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) for providing tobacco seeds and help in analyzing of NtAP2 genes. Critical reading by Dr. Caren Chang (University of Maryland) is greatly appreciated. This work was supported by the research project of tobacco mutant screening and characterization to CHD [(110201201004 (JY-04); 110201301005 (JY-05)]. This work was also supported by Taishan Scholar program, National Natural Science Foundation of China to CHD (31370322) and HXP (31400247), and Shandong Natural Science Foundation (ZR2012CM022) to CHD.

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  1. College of Life Sciences, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, 266109, China

    Honglin Wang, Feifei Wang, Fangfang Zheng, Lijuan Wang, Hiaxia Pei & Chun-Hai Dong

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  1. Honglin Wang
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  2. Feifei Wang
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  3. Fangfang Zheng
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  4. Lijuan Wang
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Correspondence to Chun-Hai Dong.

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Wang, H., Wang, F., Zheng, F. et al. Ethylene-insensitive mutants of Nicotiana tabacum exhibit drought stress resistance. Plant Growth Regul 79, 107–117 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-015-0116-0

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