Most plants slow growth when the stress hormone abscisic acid (ABA) accumulates. In the extremophyte Schrenkiella parvula, a relative of Arabidopsis native to saline soils, ABA instead promotes growth. Ying Sun and colleagues traced this reversal to a rewired ABA-responsive gene regulatory network, showing that divergence in a conserved stress network can switch growth control from a brake to an accelerator. The work points to regulatory changes that could be used to engineer crops that tolerate degraded and saline soils.
Coverage: Stanford Report
Sun Y, Oh DH, Duan L, Ramachandran P, Ramirez A, Bartlett A, Dassanayake M, Dinneny JR (2022) Divergence in a stress-associated gene regulatory network underlies differential growth control. Nature Plants 8:549-560. doi: 10.1038/s41477-022-01139-5
Dinneny lab 