Jasmonoyl isoleucine accumulation is needed for abscisic acid build-up in roots of Arabidopsis under water stress conditions

Abstract

Phytohormones are central players in sensing and signallingnumerous environmental conditions like drought. In thiswork, hormone profiling together with gene expression ofkey enzymes involved in abscisic acid (ABA) and jasmonatebiosynthesis were studied in desiccating Arabidopsis roots.Jasmonic acid (JA) content transiently increased after stressimposition whereas progressive and concomitant ABA andJasmonoyl Isoleucine (JA-Ile) accumulations were detected.Molecular data suggest that, at least, part of the hormonalregulation takes place at the biosynthetic level. These obser-vations also point to a possible involvement of jasmonates onABA biosynthesis under stress. To test this hypothesis,mutants impaired in jasmonate biosynthesis (opr3, lox6 andjar1-1) and in JA-dependent signalling (coi1) wereemployed. Results showed that the early JA accumulationleading to JA-Ile build up was necessary for an ABA increasein roots under two different water stress conditions. Signaltransduction between water stress-induced JA-Ile accumula-tion and COI1 is necessary for a full induction of the ABAbiosynthesis pathway and subsequent hormone accumula-tion in roots of Arabidopsis plants. The present work adds alevel of interaction between jasmonates and ABA at thebiosynthetic level