When a plant encounters drought, it does its best to cope with this stress by activating1 a set of protein molecules2 called receptors(受体,感受器) . These receptors, once activated3, turn on processes that help the plant survive the stress. A team of plant cell biologists has discovered how to rewire this cellular4 machinery5 to heighten the plants' stress response -- a finding that can be used to engineer crops to give them a better shot at surviving and displaying increased yield under drought conditions.
The discovery, made in the laboratory of Sean Cutler, an associate professor of plant cell biology at the University of California, Riverside, brings drought-tolerant crops a step closer to becoming a reality.
It's the hormones7
When plants encounter drought, they naturally produce abscisic acid(脱落酸) , a stress hormone6 that helps them cope with the drought conditions. Specifically, the hormone turns on receptors in the plants, resulting in a suite8 of beneficial changes that help the plants survive. These changes typically include guard cells closing on leaves to reduce water loss, cessation(停止) of plant growth to reduce water consumption and myriad9(无数的) other stress-relieving responses.
The discovery by Cutler and others of abscisic acid receptors, which orchestrate these responses, was heralded10(通报,预示) by Science magazine as a breakthrough of the year in 2009 due to the importance of the receptor proteins to drought and stress tolerance11.