Natural variation in salt-induced changes in root:shoot ratio reveals SR3G as a negative regulator of root suberization and salt resilience in Arabidopsis

作者：Maryam Rahmati Ishka, Hayley Sussman, Yunfei Hu, Mashael Daghash Alqahtani, Eric Craft, Ronell Sicat, Minmin Wang, Liang Yu, Rachid Ait‐Haddou, Bo Li, Georgia Drakakaki, Andrew D. L. Nelson, Miguel A. Piñeros, Arthur Korte, Łukasz Jaremko, Christa Testerink, Mark Tester, Magdalena Julkowska · 发表于：eLife · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.7554/elife.98896.4 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Plant Stress Responses and Tolerance、Plant Molecular Biology Research、Silicon Effects in Agriculture

Soil salinity is one of the major threats to agricultural productivity worldwide. Salt stress exposure alters root and shoots growth rates, thereby affecting overall plant performance. While past studies have extensively documented the effect of salt stress on root elongation and shoot development separately, here we take an innovative approach by examining the coordination of root and shoot growth under salt stress conditions. Utilizing a newly developed tool for quantifying the root:shoot ratio in agar-grown Arabidopsis seedlings, we found that salt stress results in a loss of coordination between root and shoot growth rates. We identify a specific gene cluster encoding domain-of-unknown-function 247 (DUF247), and characterize one of these genes as S alt R oot:shoot R atio R egulator G ene (SR3G). Further analysis elucidates the role of SR3G as a negative regulator of salt stress tolerance, revealing its function in regulating shoot growth, root suberization, and sodium accumulation. We further characterize that SR3G expression is modulated by WRKY75 transcription factor, known as a positive regulator of salt stress tolerance. Finally, we show that the salt stress sensitivity of wrky75 mutant is completely diminished when it is combined with sr3g mutation. Together, our results demonstrate that utilizing root:shoot ratio as an architectural feature leads to the discovery of a new stress resilience gene. The study’s innovative approach and findings not only contribute to our...