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JXB Advance Access originally published online on May 9, 2008
Journal of Experimental Botany 2008 59(8):2029-2041; doi:10.1093/jxb/ern057
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© 2008 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

RESEARCH PAPER

Mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal Lactuca sativa plants exhibit contrasting responses to exogenous ABA during drought stress and recovery

Ricardo Aroca1, Paolo Vernieri2 and Juan Manuel Ruiz-Lozano1,*

1Departamento de Microbiología del Suelo y Sistemas Simbióticos. Estación Experimental del Zaidín (CSIC). Profesor Albareda no. 1, E-18008 Granada, Spain
2Dipartimento di Biologia delle Piante Agrarie, Università degli Studi di Pisa, I-56100 Pisa, Italy

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: juanmanuel.ruiz{at}eez.csic.es

The arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis enhances plant tolerance to water deficit through the alteration of plant physiology and the expression of plant genes. These changes have been postulated to be caused (among others) by different contents of abscisic acid (ABA) between AM and non-AM plants. However, there are no studies dealing with the effects of exogenous ABA on the expression of stress-related genes and on the physiology of AM plants. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of AM symbiosis and exogenous ABA application on plant development, physiology, and expression of several stress-related genes after both drought and a recovery period. Results show that the application of exogenous ABA had contrasting effects on AM and non-AM plants. Only AM plants fed with exogenous ABA maintained shoot biomass production unaltered by drought stress. The addition of exogenous ABA enhanced considerably the ABA content in shoots of non-AM plants, concomitantly with the expression of the stress marker genes Lsp5cs and Lslea and the gene Lsnced. By contrast, the addition of exogenous ABA decreased the content of ABA in shoots of AM plants and did not produce any further enhancement of the expression of these three genes. AM plants always exhibited higher values of root hydraulic conductivity and reduced transpiration rate under drought stress. From plants subjected to drought, only the AM plants recovered their root hydraulic conductivity completely after the 3 d recovery period. As a whole, the results indicate that AM plants regulate their ABA levels better and faster than non-AM plants, allowing a more adequate balance between leaf transpiration and root water movement during drought and recovery.

Key words: ABA, arbuscular mycorrhiza, drought, recovery, stress-related gene

Received 14 January 2008; Revised 5 February 2008 Accepted 6 February 2008


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