TY - JOUR
T1 - Natural alleles of the abscisic acid catabolism gene ZmAbh4 modulate water use efficiency and carbon isotope discrimination in maize
AU - Blankenagel, Sonja
AU - Eggels, Stella
AU - Frey, Monika
AU - Grill, Erwin
AU - Bauer, Eva
AU - Dawid, Corinna
AU - Fernie, Alisdair R.
AU - Haberer, Georg
AU - Hammerl, Richard
AU - Medeiros, David Barbosa
AU - Ouzunova, Milena
AU - Presterl, Thomas
AU - Ruß, Victoria
AU - Schäufele, Rudi
AU - Schlüter, Urte
AU - Tardieu, Francois
AU - Urbany, Claude
AU - Urzinger, Sebastian
AU - Weber, Andreas P.M.
AU - Schön, Chris Carolin
AU - Avramova, Viktoriya
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of American Society of Plant Biologists.
PY - 2022/10
Y1 - 2022/10
N2 - Altering plant water use efficiency (WUE) is a promising approach for achieving sustainable crop production in changing climate scenarios. Here, we show that WUE can be tuned by alleles of a single gene discovered in elite maize (Zea mays) breeding material. Genetic dissection of a genomic region affecting WUE led to the identification of the gene ZmAbh4 as causative for the effect. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated ZmAbh4 inactivation increased WUE without growth reductions in well-watered conditions. ZmAbh4 encodes an enzyme that hydroxylates the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) and initiates its catabolism. Stomatal conductance is regulated by ABA and emerged as a major link between variation in WUE and discrimination against the heavy carbon isotope (D13C) during photosynthesis in the C4 crop maize. Changes in D13C persisted in kernel material, which offers an easy-to-screen proxy for WUE. Our results establish a direct physiological and genetic link between WUE and D13C through a single gene with potential applications in maize breeding.
AB - Altering plant water use efficiency (WUE) is a promising approach for achieving sustainable crop production in changing climate scenarios. Here, we show that WUE can be tuned by alleles of a single gene discovered in elite maize (Zea mays) breeding material. Genetic dissection of a genomic region affecting WUE led to the identification of the gene ZmAbh4 as causative for the effect. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated ZmAbh4 inactivation increased WUE without growth reductions in well-watered conditions. ZmAbh4 encodes an enzyme that hydroxylates the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) and initiates its catabolism. Stomatal conductance is regulated by ABA and emerged as a major link between variation in WUE and discrimination against the heavy carbon isotope (D13C) during photosynthesis in the C4 crop maize. Changes in D13C persisted in kernel material, which offers an easy-to-screen proxy for WUE. Our results establish a direct physiological and genetic link between WUE and D13C through a single gene with potential applications in maize breeding.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85139375426
U2 - 10.1093/plcell/koac200
DO - 10.1093/plcell/koac200
M3 - Article
C2 - 35792867
AN - SCOPUS:85139375426
SN - 1040-4651
VL - 34
SP - 3860
EP - 3872
JO - Plant Cell
JF - Plant Cell
IS - 10
ER -