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Genetic analysis of involvement of ETR1 in plant response to salt and osmotic stress

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Abstract

The involvement of ethylene and ethylene receptor Ethylene Response 1 (ETR1) in plant stress responses has been highlighted. However, the physiological processes involved remain unclear. In this study, we have investigated the physiological response of two alleles etr1-1 and etr1-7 mutants during germination and post-germination seedling development in response to salt and osmotic stress. The etr1-1 mutants showed increased sensitivity to osmotic (200 mM or higher mannitol) and salt stress (50 mM NaCl or higher) during germination and seedling development, whereas the etr1-7 mutants displayed enhanced tolerance to the severe stresses (500 mM mannitol or 200 mM NaCl). These results provide physiological and genetic evidence that ethylene receptor ETR1 modulates plant response to abiotic stress. Furthermore, the etr1-1 and etr1-7 mutants showed different responses to exogenous abscisic acid (ABA) inhibition. The etr1-1 mutants were more sensitive to ABA than the wild type during germination, and young seedling development. In sharp contrast, the etr1-7 mutants showed enhanced insensitivity to ABA treatment (>1 μM ABA) in post-germination development including root elongation and greening of cotyledons of the treated seedlings, although the germination was not greatly altered at the tested doses of ABA. The results suggest that ETR1-modulated stress response may mediate ABA.

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Abbreviations

ABA:

Abscisic acid

ETR1:

Ethylene Response 1

ERS1:

Ethylene Response Sensor 1

ERS2:

Ethylene Response Sensor 2

ETR2:

Ethylene Response 2

EIN4:

Ethylene Insensitive 4

CTR1:

Constitutive Triple Response 1

EIN2:

Ethylene Insensitive 2

EIN3:

Ethylene Insensitive 3

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Bleeckers’ lab at University of Wisconsin for kindly providing etr1-1 and etr1-7 seeds. This work was supported by One Hundred Talents Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences. It was also supported in part by a Chinese NSFC grant (30570143). We also thank Ms. Jing Shi for her technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Center of Agricultural Resources, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 286 Huaizhong Road, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050021, China

    Youning Wang, Tao Wang, Kexue Li & Xia Li

  2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy Sciences, Beijing, 10003, China

    Youning Wang & Tao Wang

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  1. Youning Wang
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  2. Tao Wang
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  3. Kexue Li
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  4. Xia Li
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xia Li.

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Youning Wang and Tao Wang contributed equally to this report.

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Wang, Y., Wang, T., Li, K. et al. Genetic analysis of involvement of ETR1 in plant response to salt and osmotic stress. Plant Growth Regul 54, 261–269 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-007-9249-0

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