TaERECTA Responses to Phytohormones, Mg2+ Stress and Dehydration and Its Correlation with Stomatal Density in Bread Wheat

ERECTA is an ancient family of leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases (RLKs) that coordinate growth and development of plant. TaERECTA, one copy of the ERECTA homologs in wheat, was isolated from bread wheat Chinese Spring. The Ser/Thr kinase of TaERECTA was expressed in E. coli after IPTG induction and confirmed by immunoblot. TaERECTA showed higher expression in younger organs with rapid development, as well as great expression in younger spikes at booting stage. Under exogenous application of gibberellin (GA(3)) and abscisic acid (ABA), and Mg2+ stress, the expression of TaERECTA was largely suppressed, whereas under exogenous application of indole acetic acid (IAA) and brassinolide (BR), and dehydration stress, its expression was initially suppressed and then up-regulated. Natural variation was apparent in the relative expression of TaERECTA among 9 different bread wheat lines, and its expression level was negatively correlated with the stomatal density. These results suggested that TaERECTA could be exploitable for manipulating agronomical traits important through regulating stomata density, with potential implication for bread wheat improvement.