Asg1 is a stress-inducible gene which increases stomatal resistance in salt stressed potato

The identification of critical components in plant salt stress adaptation has greatly benefitted, in the last two decades, from fundamental discoveries in Arabidopsis and close model systems. Nevertheless, this approach has also highlighted a non-complete overlap between stress tolerance mechanisms in Arabidopsis and agricultural crops. Within a long-running research program aimed at identifying salt stress genetic determinants in potato by functional screening in Escherichia coli, we isolated Asg1, a stress-related gene with an unknown function. Asg1 is induced by salt stress in both potato and Arabidopsis and by abscisic acid in Arabidopsis. Asg1 is actively transcribed in all plant tissues. Furthermore, Asg1 promoter analysis confirmed its ubiquitous expression, which was remarkable in pollen, a plant tissue that undergoes drastic dehydration/hydration processes. Fusion of Asg1 with green fluorescent protein showed that the encoded protein is localized close to the plasma membrane with a non-continuous pattern of distribution. In addition, Arabidopsis knockout asg1 mutants were insensitive to both NaCl and sugar hyperosmotic environments during seed germination. Transgenic potato plants over-expressing the Asg1 gene revealed a stomatal hypersensitivity to NaCl stress which, however, did not result in a significantly improved tuber yield in stress conditions. Altogether, these data suggest that Asg1 might interfere with components of the stress signaling pathway by promoting stomatal closure and participating in stress adaptation.

The SUMO E3 ligase, AtSIZ1, regulates flowering by controlling a salicylic acid-mediated floral promotion pathway and through affects on FLC chromatin structure

Loss-of-function siz1 mutations caused early flowering under short days. siz1 plants have elevated salicylic acid (SA) levels, which are restored to wild-type levels by expressing nahG, bacterial salicylate hydroxylase. The early flowering of siz1 was suppressed by expressing nahG, indicating that SIZ1 represses the transition to flowering mainly through suppressing SA-dependent floral promotion signaling under short days. Previous results have shown that exogenous SA treatment does not suppress late flowering of autonomous pathway mutants. However, the siz1 mutation accelerated flowering time of an autonomous pathway mutant, luminidependens, by reducing the expression of FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC), a floral repressor. This result suggests that SIZ1 promotes FLC expression, possibly through an SA-independent pathway. Evidence indicates that SIZ1 is required for the full activation of FLC expression in the late-flowering FRIGIDA background. Interestingly, increased FLC expression and late flowering of an autonomous pathway mutant, flowering locus d (fld), was not suppressed by siz1, suggesting that SIZ1 promotes FLC expression by repressing FLD. Consistent with this, SIZ1 facilitates sumoylation of FLD that can be suppressed by mutations in three predicted sumoylation motifs in FLD (i.e. FLDK3R). Furthermore, expression of FLDK3R in fld protoplasts strongly reduced FLC transcription compared with expression of FLD, and this affect was linked to reduced acetylation of histone 4 in FLC chromatin. Taken together, the results suggest that SIZ1 is a floral repressor that not only represses the SA-dependent pathway, but also promotes FLC expression by repressing FLD activity through sumoylation, which is required for full FLC expression in a FRIGIDA background.