Responses of PYR/PYL/RCAR ABA Receptors to Contrasting stresses, Heat and Cold in Arabidopsis

Plants growing in natural habitats have evolved a wide range of mechanisms to copy with environmental challenging, including biotic and abiotic stresses. Abiotic stresses-induced increases in Abscisic acid (ABA) levels in plants suffering from stresses, including drought, cold or heat stress. To explore the function of the core components in ABA signaling, we used the overexpression of RCARs transgenic plants to expose in heat or cold stress. In this study, overexpression of RCAR12 or RCAR13 (R12-OE or R13-OE) transgenic plants had higher germination and survival rate than the wild-type (WT) Arabidopsis, indicating that they are both positively responsive to the high temperature. And the heat shock genes HSP18.2 and HSP70 were significantly induced by RCAR12 or RCAR13. Further, the results inferred that the over-expression of RCAR12 or RCAR13 could tolerance the cold stress, through induction CBFs expressions, the cold-responsive genes when plants were challenged the cold tress. And when complementation of RCAR12 to the 1124 mutant (R12:1124), the results indicated that RCAR12 could recover the insensitivity of 1124 to heat and cold stresses. Hence, we propose that RCAR12 and RCAR13, the ABA receptors, may play the positive roles in regulating the extreme temperature, including cold and high temperature in Arabidopsis.