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Plant signaling

Abscisic acid receptor hole-in-one

Nature Chemical Biology volume 10, pages 414–415 (2014)Cite this article

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The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) has a central role in adaptive responses of plants to abiotic stress. A new ABA antagonist offers a promising tool to study ABA signaling and adaptation to abiotic stress in diverse plants, including crops.

Plants are challenged by numerous environmental conditions causing biotic and abiotic stresses. ABA, a sesquiterpene phytohormone, regulates various developmental processes such as seed dormancy, hydraulic conductivity and stomatal closure and has a central role in adaptive responses to abiotic stress such as high salt conditions, cold temperatures and drought1. Abiotic stresses elevate endogenous ABA levels and initiate a series of adaptive responses, including transcriptional activation of stress-response genes2. Because abiotic stress is known to influence plant productivity, ABA signal transduction has long been considered an attractive target to confer plant tolerance to drought and salinity2. Takeuchi et al.3 use structural insights into the ABA receptor complex to design an antagonist of ABA signaling, which may provide a useful tool for manipulating ABA responses in plants and crops.

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Figure 1: The ABA antagonist AS6 was rationally designed to bind PYL in a similar configuration to ABA.

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Affiliations

  1. Ken-ichiro Hayashi is in the Department of Biochemistry, Okayama University of Science, Okayama, Japan.

    Ken-ichiro Hayashi

  2. Toshinori Kinoshita is in the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM), Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.

    Toshinori Kinoshita

Authors
  1. Ken-ichiro Hayashi
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  2. Toshinori Kinoshita
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Correspondence to Ken-ichiro Hayashi.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Hayashi, Ki., Kinoshita, T. Abscisic acid receptor hole-in-one. Nat Chem Biol 10, 414–415 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1529

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1529

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