Evolutionary-based remodeling of ABA receptors reveals the structural basis of hormone perception and regulation.
Rivera-Moreno M, Bono M, Infantes L, Rodriguez PL, Albert A
Plant Signaling
PubMedEvery tomato plant, wheat stalk, and oak tree in your garden uses this exact molecular alarm to decide when to conserve water during a dry spell—and understanding how to tune that alarm means breeders could grow crops that survive the droughts already hitting food supplies.
Plants have tiny molecular sensors that detect a chemical signal telling them 'it's dry, conserve water.' This study found the five specific building blocks that act like dials on those sensors, controlling how sensitive they are and whether they stay on all the time or only switch on when the drought signal arrives. By swapping those building blocks between ancient and modern plant sensors, researchers could turn a hair-trigger sensor into a sluggish one—and vice versa—which means we now have a clear blueprint for engineering plants that handle drought better.
Key Findings
A five-residue molecular signature governs ABA receptor sensitivity: three leucines lock the receptor gate shut (enabling hormone-independent activity, an ancestral trait), while two interface residues toggle between dimer and monomer forms to set ABA binding strength.
Structure-guided swaps of just these five residues were sufficient to reciprocally convert receptor behavior between ABA-dependent and ABA-independent modes, confirming the code is both necessary and sufficient.
Evolutionary analysis spanning algae, bryophytes, and flowering plants revealed how the receptor architecture was progressively remodeled across ~500 million years of land-plant evolution to fine-tune drought response.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists decoded a five-amino-acid molecular switch that controls how plants detect the drought-stress hormone abscisic acid (ABA). By mapping this switch across evolutionary lineages—from algae to flowering plants—they can now engineer receptors with predictable sensitivity, opening a path to crops that close their pores faster or slower in response to water stress.
Abstract Preview
Drought limits crop productivity, and effective mitigation requires a mechanistic understanding of how abscisic acid (ABA) perception translates hormone levels into physiological responses. In seed...
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