“…In plants, several gene families are thought to encode Ca 2+ -permeable channels (Ward et al, 2009;Hedrich, 2012), among them Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) glutamate receptor homologs (AtGLRs) share high structural similarity to ionotropic Glu receptor Ca 2+ channels in animals (Lam et al, 1998), and consist of 20 gene family members (Lacombe et al, 2001). Studies have shown that these plant GLRs participate in diverse physiological and developmental procedures, including pollen tube morphogenesis (Michard et al, 2011), root development (Kang et al, 2004;Li et al, 2006;Vincill et al, 2013), stomatal closure regulation (Cho et al, 2009), and various stress responses (Kim et al, 2001;Meyerhoff et al, 2005;Li et al, 2013;Mousavi et al, 2013), which are mostly dependent on Ca 2+ . Despite the importance of AtGLR-related Ca 2+ modulation in these processes, the function and molecular mechanism of Ca 2+ signaling and AtGLRs in seed germination, the early plant developmental event that greatly impacts the plant's entire life and agricultural performance (Rajjou et al, 2012), is largely unknown.…”