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JXB Advance Access first published online on September 26, 2009
This version published online on November 2, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany, doi:10.1093/jxb/erp290
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© 2009 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/2.5/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

Mild salinity stimulates a stress-induced morphogenic response in Arabidopsis thaliana roots

Gaston Zolla, Yair M. Heimer and Simon Barak*

Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, French Associates Institute for Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Midreshet Ben-Gurion, 84990, Israel

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: simon{at}bgu.ac.il

Plant roots exhibit remarkable developmental plasticity in response to local soil conditions. It is shown here that mild salt stress stimulates a stress-induced morphogenic response (SIMR) in Arabidopsis thaliana roots characteristic of several other abiotic stresses: the proliferation of lateral roots (LRs) with a concomitant reduction in LR and primary root length. The LR proliferation component of the salt SIMR is dramatically enhanced by the transfer of seedlings from a low to a high NOFormula medium, thereby compensating for the decreased LR length and maintaining overall LR surface area. Increased LR proliferation is specific to salt stress (osmotic stress alone has no stimulatory effect) and is due to the progression of more LR primordia from the pre-emergence to the emergence stage, in salt-stressed plants. In salt-stressed seedlings, greater numbers of LR primordia exhibit expression of a reporter gene driven by the auxin-sensitive DR5 promoter than in unstressed seedlings. Moreover, in the auxin transporter mutant aux1-7, the LR proliferation component of the salt SIMR is completely abrogated. The results suggest that salt stress promotes auxin accumulation in developing primordia thereby preventing their developmental arrest at the pre-emergence stage. Examination of ABA and ethylene mutants revealed that ABA synthesis and a factor involved in the ethylene signalling network also regulate the LR proliferation component of the salt SIMR.

Key words: ABA, Arabidopsis thaliana, auxin, lateral root, salt stress, SIMR

The figures in the original version of this paper were incorrect and these have been replaced with updated versions.

Received 15 July 2009; Revised 7 September 2009 Accepted 8 September 2009


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