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A history of stress alters drought calcium signalling pathways in Arabidopsis
Author(s) -
Knight Heather,
Brandt Stephan,
Knight Marc R.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
the plant journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.058
H-Index - 269
eISSN - 1365-313X
pISSN - 0960-7412
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-313x.1998.00332.x
Subject(s) - osmotic shock , calcium , chemistry , oxidative stress , arabidopsis thaliana , arabidopsis , cytosol , calcium signaling , biophysics , microbiology and biotechnology , biochemistry , biology , signal transduction , gene , mutant , organic chemistry , enzyme
Summary Environmental stresses commonly encountered by plants lead to rapid transient elevations in cytosolic free calcium concentration ([Ca 2+ ] cyt ) (Bush 1995;Knightet al. 1991). These cellular calcium (Ca 2+ ) signals lead ultimately to the increased expression of stress‐responsive genes, including those encoding proteins of protective function (Knightet al. 1996;Knightet al. 1997). The kinetics and magnitude of the Ca 2+ signal, or ‘calcium signature’, differ between different stimuli and are thought to contribute to the specificity of the end response (Dolmetschet al. 1997;McAinsh & Hetherington 1998). We measured [Ca 2+ ] cyt changes during treatment with mannitol (to mimic drought stress) in whole intact seedlings ofArabidopsis thaliana. The responses of plants which were previously exposed to osmotic and oxidative stresses were compared to those of control plants. We show here that osmotic stress‐induced Ca 2+ responses can be markedly altered by previous encounters with either osmotic or oxidative stress. The nature of the alterations in Ca 2+ response depends on the identity and severity of the previous stress: oxidative stress pre‐treatment reduced the mannitol‐induced [Ca 2+ ] cyt response whereas osmotic stress pre‐treatment increased the [Ca 2+ ] cyt response. Therefore, our data show that different combinations of environmental stress can produce novel Ca 2+ signal outputs. These alterations are accompanied by corresponding changes in the patterns of osmotic stress‐induced gene expression and, in the case of osmotic stress pre‐treatment, the acquisition of stress‐tolerance. This suggests that altered Ca 2+ responses encode a ‘memory’ of previous stress encounters and thus may perhaps be involved in acclimation to environmental stresses.