title: Constitutive production of nitric oxide leads to enhanced drought stress resistance and extensive transcriptional reprogramming in Arabidopsis.
abstract: Nitric oxide (NO) is involved in plant responses to many environmental stresses. Transgenic Arabidopsis lines that constitutively express rat neuronal NO synthase (nNOS) were described recently. In this study, it is reported that the nNOS transgenic Arabidopsis plants displayed high levels of osmolytes and increased antioxidant enzyme activities. Transcriptomic analysis identified 601 or 510 genes that were differentially expressed as a consequence of drought stress or nNOS transformation, respectively. Pathway and gene ontology (GO) term enrichment analyses revealed that genes involved in photosynthesis, redox, stress, and phytohormone and secondary metabolism were greatly affected by the nNOS transgene. Several CBF genes and members of zinc finger gene families, which are known to regulate transcription in the stress response, were changed by the nNOS transgene. Genes regulated by both the nNOS transgene and abscisic acid (ABA) treatments were compared and identified, including those for two ABA receptors (AtPYL4 and AtPYL5). Moreover, overexpression of AtPYL4 and AtPYL5 enhanced drought resistance, antioxidant enzyme activity, and osmolyte levels. These observations increase our understanding of the role of NO in drought stress response in Arabidopsis.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors.forename: Haitao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430074, China University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100039, China.
authors.forename: Tiantian
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology and Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA zhulongch@wbgcas.cn jkzhu@purdue.edu.
authors.forename: Jian-Kang
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430074, China zhulongch@wbgcas.cn jkzhu@purdue.edu.
authors.forename: Zhulong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000378:metabolism*; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D055864:Droughts; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D009569:Nitric Oxide / Q000378:metabolism*; D052248:Nitric Oxide Synthase Type I / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species / Q000378:metabolism; D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface / Q000378:metabolism; D013312:Stress, Physiological
chemical_list: D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; C587488:PYL4 protein, Arabidopsis; D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species; D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface; D009569:Nitric Oxide; D052248:Nitric Oxide Synthase Type I
keywords: Abscisic acid; PYL; drought stress; in vivo; neuronal nitric oxide synthase; nitric oxide; physiological; transcriptomic.