Surface wax esters contribute to drought tolerance in Arabidopsis

• DOI: 10.1111/tpj.14269
• Publication Date: 2019-02-07T09:00:19Z
• Authors: Payal Patwari; Veronika Salewski; Katharina Gutbrod; Tino Kreszies; Brigitte Dresen‐S...; Helga Peisker; Ulrike Steiner; Andreas J. Meyer; Lukas Schreiber; Peter Dörmann
• Keywords: Drought Tolerance

Waxes are components of the cuticle covering aerial organs plants. Accumulation waxes has previously been associated with protection against water loss, therefore contributing to drought tolerance. However, not much information is known about function individual wax during deficit. We studied role ester synthesis drought. The load on Arabidopsis leaves and stems was increased deficiency. Expression three genes, WSD1, WSD6 WSD7 synthase/diacylglycerol acyltransferase (WS/DGAT or WSD) family induced drought, salt stress abscisic acid treatment. WSD1 identified as major synthase stems. wsd1 mutants have shown reduced coverage normal condition, while loads wsd6, wsd7 wsd6wsd7 double mutant were unchanged. growth relative content plants compromised leaf loss increased. Enzyme assays recombinant proteins expressed in insect cells revealed that contain activity, albeit different substrate specificity compared WSD1. localize endoplasmic reticulum (ER)/Golgi. These results demonstrated involved accumulation esters might play other specific roles metabolism stress.