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Arabidopsis EIN2 modulates stress response through abscisic acid response pathway

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Abstract

The nuclear protein ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE2 (EIN2) is a central component of the ethylene signal transduction pathway in plants, and plays an important role in mediating cross-links between several hormone response pathways, including abscisic acid (ABA). ABA mediates stress responses in plants, but there is no report on the role of EIN2 on plant response to salt and osmotic stresses. Here, we show that EIN2 gene regulates plant response to osmotic and salt stress through an ABA-dependent pathway in Arabidopsis. The expression of the EIN2 gene is down-regulated by salt and osmotic stress. An Arabidopsis EIN2 null mutant was supersensitive to both salt and osmotic stress conditions. Disruption of EIN2 specifically altered the expression pattern of stress marker gene RD29B in response to the stresses, but not the stress- or ABA-responsive genes RD29A and RD22, suggesting EIN2 modulates plant stress responses through the RD29B branch of the ABA response. Furthermore, disruption of EIN2 caused substantial increase in ABA. Lastly, our data showed that mutations of other key genes in ethylene pathway also had altered sensitivity to abiotic stresses, indicating that the intact ethylene may involve in the stress response. Taken together, the results identified EIN2 as a cross-link node in ethylene, ABA and stress signaling pathways, and EIN2 is necessary to induce developmental arrest during seed germination, and seedling establishment, as well as subsequent vegetative growth, thereby allowing the survival and growth of plants under the adverse environmental conditions.

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Abbreviations

ABA:

Abscisic acid

ETR1 :

Ethylene Responsive 1

CTR1 :

Constitutive Triple Response 1

EIN2 :

Ethylene Insensitive 2

EIN2 :

Ethylene Insensitive 3

NCED3 :

9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase3

RD29A :

Desiccation responsive genes

RD29B/ RD22 :

ABA responsive genes

ABI3 :

ABA insensitive 3

ABI5 :

ABA insensitive 5

ABI8 :

ABA insensitive 8

ZEP/ABA1 :

Zeaxanthin epoxidase

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Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Dr. Alonse JM (North Carolina State University) for providing the Arabidopsis ethylene response related seeds. This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 3057143) and Young Excellent program of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Youning Wang, Chuang Liu, Kexue Li, Feifei Sun, Xia Li, Yankun Zhao, Chunyu Han, Wensheng Zhang, Yunfeng Duan, Mengyu Liu & Xia Li

  2. College of Agronomy, Shandong Agricultural University, 286 Huaizhong Road, Tai’an, Shandong, 271018, P.R. China

    Haizhou Hu

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  1. Youning Wang
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  2. Chuang Liu
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Correspondence to Xia Li.

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Youning Wang and Chuang Liu contributed equally to this work.

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Wang, Y., Liu, C., Li, K. et al. Arabidopsis EIN2 modulates stress response through abscisic acid response pathway. Plant Mol Biol 64, 633–644 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-007-9182-7

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