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cGMP and ethylene are involved in maintaining ion homeostasis under salt stress in Arabidopsis roots

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cGMP promotes ethylene production and enhances the perception of ethylene. Endogenous ethylene or cGMP accumulation maintains ion homeostasis to enhancing salt resistance. etr1 - 3 is insensitive to cGMP under salt stress.

Abstract

In the present study, we presented a signaling network involving ethylene and cGMP in salt resistance pathway of Arabidopsis roots. Results showed that the ethylene-insensitive mutant etr1-3 was more sensitive to salt stress than the wild type (WT). etr1-3 displayed a greater electrolyte leakage, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances and Na+/K+ ratio, but a lower plasma membrane (PM) H+-ATPase activity compared to WT under the different NaCl contents. Application of 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC, an ethylene precursor) or 8-Br-cGMP (the cGMP analog) alleviated NaCl-induced injury by maintaining a lower Na+/K+ ratio and increasing PM H+-ATPase activity in WT, but not in etr1-3. Roots treated with 8-Br-cGMP could promote ethylene production and enhance the expression of ACC synthase gene in WT. In addition, the 8-Br-cGMP action in NaCl stress was inhibited by aminooxyacetic acid (an inhibitor of ethylene biosynthesis), but 6-Anilino-5,8-quinolinedione (Ly83583, a guanylate cyclase inhibitor) could not affect ACC action in WT. These results suggest that ethylene functions as a downstream signal of cGMP that stimulates the PM H+-ATPase activity, which finally results in regulating ion homeostasis in Arabidopsis tolerance to salt. Moreover, cGMP enhanced the perception of ethylene in Arabidopsis under salt stress, which reversed the salt-induced increase of ETR1 and increased ERF1 at the transcript levels in WT. In a word, cGMP modulates salt resistance pathway of ethylene through regulating biosynthesis and perception of ethylene in Arabidopsis roots.

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Acknowledgments

Support for this work is from the Northwest A&F University doctor start-up Foundation (Z109021116).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Sciences, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Jisheng Li & Honglei Jia

  2. Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Jue Wang

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  1. Jisheng Li
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  2. Honglei Jia
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  3. Jue Wang
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Correspondence to Jisheng Li.

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Communicated by M. Menossi.

J. Li and H. Jia contributed equally to this work.

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Li, J., Jia, H. & Wang, J. cGMP and ethylene are involved in maintaining ion homeostasis under salt stress in Arabidopsis roots. Plant Cell Rep 33, 447–459 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-013-1545-8

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