A Dominant Negative OsKAT2 Mutant Delays Light-Induced Stomatal Opening and Improves Drought Tolerance without Yield Penalty in Rice.

Stomata are the main gateways for water and air transport between leaves and the environment. Inward-rectifying potassium channels regulate photo-induced stomatal opening. Rice contains three inward rectifying shaker-like potassium channel proteins, OsKAT1, OsKAT2, and OsKAT3. Among these, only OsKAT2 is specifically expressed in guard cells. Here, we investigated the functions of OsKAT2 in stomatal regulation using three dominant negative mutant proteins, OsKAT2(T235R), OsKAT2(T285A) and OsKAT2(T285D), which are altered in amino acids in the channel pore and at a phosphorylation site. Yeast complementation and patch clamp assays showed that all three mutant proteins lost channel activity. However, among plants overexpressing these mutant proteins, only plants overexpressing OsKAT2(T235R) showed significantly less water loss than the control. Moreover, overexpression of this mutant protein led to delayed photo-induced stomatal opening and increased drought tolerance. Our results indicate that OsKAT2 is an inward- rectifying shaker-like potassium channel that mainly functions in stomatal opening. Interestingly, overexpression of OsKAT2(T235R) did not cause serious defects in growth or yield in rice, suggesting that OsKAT2 is a potential target for engineering plants with improved drought tolerance without yield penalty.

Functional characterization and reconstitution of ABA signaling components using transient gene expression in rice protoplasts.

The core components of ABA-dependent gene expression signaling have been identified in Arabidopsis and rice. This signaling pathway consists of four major components; group A OsbZIPs, SAPKs, subclass A OsPP2Cs and OsPYL/RCARs in rice. These might be able to make thousands of combinations through interaction networks resulting in diverse signaling responses. We tried to characterize those gene functions using transient gene expression for rice protoplasts (TGERP) because it is instantaneous and convenient system. Firstly, in order to monitor the ABA signaling output, we developed reporter system named pRab16A-fLUC which consists of Rab16A promoter of rice and luciferase gene. It responses more rapidly and sensitively to ABA than pABRC3-fLUC that consists of ABRC3 of HVA1 promoter in TGERP. We screened the reporter responses for over-expression of each signaling components from group A OsbZIPs to OsPYL/RCARs with or without ABA in TGERP. OsbZIP46 induced reporter most strongly among OsbZIPs tested in the presence of ABA. SAPKs could activate the OsbZIP46 even in the ABA independence. Subclass A OsPP2C6 and -8 almost completely inhibited the OsbZIP46 activity in the different degree through the SAPK9. Lastly, OsPYL/RCAR2 and -5 rescued the OsbZIP46 activity in the presence of SAPK9 and OsPP2C6 dependent on ABA concentration and expression level. By using TGERP, we could characterize successfully the effects of ABA dependent gene expression signaling components in rice. In conclusion, TGERP represents very useful technology to study systemic functional genomics in rice or other monocots.