Acclimation and endogenous abscisic acid in the moss Physcomitrella patens during acquisition of desiccation tolerance

The moss Physcomitrella patens has been used as a model organism to study the induction of desiccation tolerance (DT), but links between dehydration rate, the accumulation of endogenous abscisic acid (ABA) and DT remain unclear. In this study, we show that prolonged acclimation of P. patens at 89% r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physiologia plantarum 2019-11, Vol.167 (3), p.317-329
Main Authors: Rathnayake, Kumudu N., Nelson, Sven, Seeve, Candace, Oliver, Melvin J., Koster, Karen L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abscisic acid
Abscisic Acid - metabolism
Acclimation
Acclimatization
Accumulation
Bryopsida - metabolism
Dehydration
Desiccation
drought tolerance
Drying
Fluorescence
fluorescent proteins
gametophores
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
Methionine
Mosses
mosses and liverworts
Physcomitrella patens
Plant Proteins - metabolism
protonemata
Relative humidity
Reporter gene
reporter genes
tissues
Water loss
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Summary:The moss Physcomitrella patens has been used as a model organism to study the induction of desiccation tolerance (DT), but links between dehydration rate, the accumulation of endogenous abscisic acid (ABA) and DT remain unclear. In this study, we show that prolonged acclimation of P. patens at 89% relative humidity (RH) [−16 MPa] can induce tolerance of desiccation at 33% RH (−153 MPa) in both protonema and gametophore stages. During acclimation, significant endogenous ABA accumulation occurred after 1 day in gametophores and after 2 days in protonemata. Physcomitrella patens expressing the ABA‐inducible EARLY METHIONINE promoter fused to a cyan fluorescent protein (CFP) reporter gene revealed a mostly uniform distribution of the CFP increasing throughout the tissues during acclimation. DT was measured by day 6 of acclimation in gametophores, but not until 9 days of acclimation for protonemata. These results suggest that endogenous ABA accumulating when moss cells experience moderate water loss requires sufficient time to induce the changes that permit cells to survive more severe desiccation. These results provide insight for ongoing studies of how acclimation induces metabolic changes to enable DT in P. patens.
ISSN:0031-9317
1399-3054
DOI:10.1111/ppl.12892