Functional roles of the pepper MLO protein gene, CaMLO2, in abscisic acid signaling and drought sensitivity

Abstract

Plants are frequently exposed to various environmental stresses including drought in the natural environment and have evolved physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms to counteract the deleterious effects of stress. Of them, modulation of abscisic acid (ABA) signal transduction allows plants to overcome stress. Recently, Kim and Hwang (Plant J 72:843-855, 2012) identified CaMLO2 that is transcriptionally induced by both biotic and abiotic stress. Based on this, we tested the possibility that CaMLO2 is involved in abiotic stress, although (m) under bar ildew resistance locus (O) under bar (MLO) proteins have been known as negative regulators in plant defense responses against powdery mildew. The CaMLO2 gene was strongly induced in pepper leaves exposed to ABA and drought. Virus-induced gene silencing of CaMLO2 in pepper plants showed low levels of transpiration and lipid peroxidation in dehydrated leaves. Overexpression of the CaMLO2 gene in Arabidopsis conferred reduced sensitivity to ABA in germination and seedling growth and establishment. High transpiration rates and low degrees of stomatal closure in response to ABA also led transgenic plants to be more vulnerable to drought than the wild-type, which was accompanied by altered expression of stress-related genes. Taken together, these data suggest that CaMLO2 acts as a negative regulator of ABA signaling that suppresses water loss from leaves under drought conditions.