Effects of Drought and Flooding on Phytohormones and Abscisic Acid Gene Expression in Kiwifruit

Abstract

Environmental extremes, such as drought and flooding, are becoming more common with global warming, resulting in significant crop losses. Understanding the mechanisms underlying the plant water stress response, regulated by the abscisic acid (ABA) pathway, is crucial to building resilience to climate change. Potted kiwifruit plants (two cultivars) were exposed to contrasting watering regimes (water logging and no water). Root and leaf tissues were sampled during the experiments to measure phytohormone levels and expression of ABA pathway genes. ABA increased significantly under drought conditions compared with the control and waterlogged plants. ABA-related gene responses were significantly greater in roots than leaves. ABA responsive genes, DREB2 and WRKY40, showed the greatest upregulation in roots with flooding, and the ABA biosynthesis gene, NCED3, with drought. Two ABA-catabolic genes, CYP707A i and ii were able to differentiate the water stress responses, with upregulation in flooding and downregulation in drought. This study has identified molecular markers and shown that water stress extremes induced strong phytohormone/ABA gene responses in the roots, which are the key site of water stress perception, supporting the theory kiwifruit plants regulate ABA to combat water stress.

Elucidating the molecular responses to waterlogging stress in onion (Allium cepa L.) leaf by comparative transcriptome profiling

“…WRKY22 was involved in submergence tolerance by positively regulating ethylene-mediated signaling ( Hsu et al., 2013 ). WRKY40 has also been reported to be upregulated under waterlogging stress in Arabidopsis and Kiwifruit ( Meng et al., 2020 ; Wurms et al., 2023 ). WRKY70 is known to regulate SA and JA signaling in response to stress and acts as a negative regulator of senescence ( Besseau et al., 2012 ).…”

Recursos fitogenéticos nativos de la región de La Mojana: una poderosa estrategia de resiliencia de los pequeños productores para mejorar la productividad ante los efectos de la variabilidad climática

“…Estudios similares al presente, pero en otras especies, han demostrado que el aumento en la duración de la inundación y la sequía afecta negativamente la conductancia estomática y la tasa fotosintética en la soya (Adegoye et al, 2023), el algodón (Huang et al, 2023;Somaddar et al, 2023), kiwi (Wurms et al, 2023), el maíz (Ru et al, 2023), el fríjol caupí (Pompelli et al, 2022) y el arroz (López-Hernández et al, 2018), entre otros. Los trabajos coinciden en que las plantas son vulnerables a la sequía e inundación, porque reducen considerablemente las tasas de difusión de O 2 y CO 2 en las raíces y tallos, e inhiben significativamente tanto la fotosíntesis como la respiración (Kim et al, 2015).…”

Transcriptome & Metabolic Profiling: An Insight Into the Abiotic Stress Response Crosstalk in Plants

“…WRKY22 was involved in submergence tolerance by positively regulating ethylene-mediated signaling (Hsu et al, 2013). WRKY40 has also been reported to be upregulated under waterlogging stress in Arabidopsis and Kiwifruit Wurms et al, 2023). WRKY70 is known to regulate SA and JA signaling in response to stress and acts as a negative regulator of senescence (Besseau et al, 2012).…”