title: Grafting cucumber onto luffa improves drought tolerance by increasing ABA biosynthesis and sensitivity.
abstract: Balancing stomata-dependent CO2 assimilation and transpiration is a key challenge for increasing crop productivity and water use efficiency under drought stress for sustainable crop production worldwide. Here, we show that cucumber and luffa plants with luffa as rootstock have intrinsically increased water use efficiency, decreased transpiration rate and less affected CO2 assimilation capacity following drought stress over those with cucumber as rootstock. Drought accelerated abscisic acid (ABA) accumulation in roots, xylem sap and leaves, and induced the transcript of ABA signaling genes, leading to a decreased stomatal aperture and transpiration in the plants grafted onto luffa roots as compared to plants grafted onto cucumber roots. Furthermore, stomatal movement in the plants grafted onto luffa roots had an increased sensitivity to ABA. Inhibition of ABA biosynthesis in luffa roots decreased the drought tolerance in cucumber and luffa plants. Our study demonstrates that the roots of luffa have developed an enhanced ability to sense the changes in root-zone moisture and could eventually deliver modest level of ABA from roots to shoots that enhances water use efficiency under drought stress. Such a mechanism could be greatly exploited to benefit the agricultural production especially in arid and semi-arid areas.
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Shanshan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.|College of Horticulture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xiangzhang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lv
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Golam Jalal
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Ahammed
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xiaojian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo Ku, Tokyo 1138657, Japan.
authors.forename: Tadao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Asami
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jingquan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.|Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Horticultural Plant Integrative Biology, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yanhong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000040:Abscisic Acid / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D000069:Acculturation; D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D018553:Cucumis sativus; D003681:Dehydration; D055864:Droughts; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D029776:Luffa; D018515:Plant Leaves; D018517:Plant Roots; D018526:Plant Transpiration; D015398:Signal Transduction; D014867:Water; D052584:Xylem
chemical_list: D014867:Water; D000040:Abscisic Acid
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