Numerous endogenous and environmental signals regulate the intricate and highly orchestrated process of plant senescence. Ethylene is a well-known inducer of senescence, including fruit ripening and flower and leaf senescence. However, the underlying molecular mechanism of ethylene-induced leaf senescence remains to be elucidated. Here, we examine ETHYLENE-INSENSITIVE3 (EIN3), a key transcription factor in ethylene signaling, and find that EIN3 is a functional senescence-associated gene. Constitutive overexpression or temporary activation of EIN3 is sufficient to accelerate leaf senescence symptoms. Conversely, loss of EIN3 and EIN3-Like1 (its close homolog) function leads to a delay in agedependent and ethylene-, jasmonic acid-, or dark-induced leaf senescence. We further found that EIN3 acts downstream of ORESARA2 (ORE2)/ORE3/EIN2 to repress miR164 transcription and upregulate the transcript levels of ORE1/NAC2, a target gene of miR164. EIN3 directly binds to the promoters of microRNA164 (miR164), and this binding activity progressively increases during leaf ageing. Genetic analysis revealed that overexpression of miR164 or knockout of ORE1/NAC2 represses EIN3-induced early-senescence phenotypes. Collectively, our study defines a continuation of the signaling pathway involving EIN2-EIN3-miR164-NAC2 in regulating leaf senescence and provides a mechanistic insight into how ethylene promotes the progression of leaf senescence in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Flash droughts refer to a type of droughts that have rapid intensification without sufficient early warning. To date, how will the flash drought risk change in a warming future climate remains unknown due to a diversity of flash drought definition, unclear role of anthropogenic fingerprints, and uncertain socioeconomic development. Here we propose a new method for explicitly characterizing flash drought events, and find that the exposure risk over China will increase by about 23% ± 11% during the middle of this century under a socioeconomic scenario with medium challenge. Optimal fingerprinting shows that anthropogenic climate change induced by the increased greenhouse gas concentrations accounts for 77% ± 26% of the upward trend of flash drought frequency, and population increase is also an important factor for enhancing the exposure risk of flash drought over southernmost humid regions. Our results suggest that the traditional drought-prone regions would expand given the human-induced intensification of flash drought risk.

Ethylene has been regarded as a stress hormone to regulate myriad stress responses. Salinity stress is one of the most serious abiotic stresses limiting plant growth and development. But how ethylene signaling is involved in plant response to salt stress is poorly understood. Here we showed that Arabidopsis plants pretreated with ethylene exhibited enhanced tolerance to salt stress. Gain- and loss-of-function studies demonstrated that EIN3 (ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE 3) and EIL1 (EIN3-LIKE 1), two ethylene-activated transcription factors, are necessary and sufficient for the enhanced salt tolerance. High salinity induced the accumulation of EIN3/EIL1 proteins by promoting the proteasomal degradation of two EIN3/EIL1-targeting F-box proteins, EBF1 and EBF2, in an EIN2-independent manner. Whole-genome transcriptome analysis identified a list of SIED (Salt-Induced and EIN3/EIL1-Dependent) genes that participate in salt stress responses, including several genes encoding reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavengers. We performed a genetic screen for ein3 eil1-like salt-hypersensitive mutants and identified 5 EIN3 direct target genes including a previously unknown gene, SIED1 (At5g22270), which encodes a 93-amino acid polypeptide involved in ROS dismissal. We also found that activation of EIN3 increased peroxidase (POD) activity through the direct transcriptional regulation of PODs expression. Accordingly, ethylene pretreatment or EIN3 activation was able to preclude excess ROS accumulation and increased tolerance to salt stress. Taken together, our study provides new insights into the molecular action of ethylene signaling to enhance plant salt tolerance, and elucidates the transcriptional network of EIN3 in salt stress response.