Discovery of 1-butanol treatment enhancing drought stress tolerance in plants

July 18, 2024

Hopes for elucidating molecular mechanisms of enhancing stress tolerance with alcohol

Researchers at the RIKEN CSRS have demonstrated that treating plants with a type of alcohol, 1-butanol, enhances drought stress tolerance in plants.

The research group previously showed that pretreating plants with ethanol improves drought and heat stress tolerances. In this study, they demonstrated that pretreatment with 1-butanol, not ethanol, also enhances drought stress tolerance. The researchers also revealed that this enhancement is brought about by the stomatal closure enhanced by the 1-butanol pretreatment and the increase in expression levels of genes associated with reactive oxygen scavenging. They compared this mechanism with the stress tolerance improvement by ethanol treatment and identified several similarities.

The findings of this study could be essential for understanding the mechanism of improving drought tolerance in plants with alcohol.

Original article

Plant Molecular Biology doi: 10.1007/s11103-024-01479-0

D. T. N. Quynh, D. Todaka, M. Tanaka, S. Takahashi, J. Ishida, K. Sako, A. J. Nagano, Y. Takebayashi, Y. Kanno, M. Okamoto, X. H. Pham, M. Seki,

"1-Butanol treatment enhances drought stress tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana".

Contact

Motoaki Seki; Team Leader
Do Thi Nhu Quynh; International Program Associate
Daisuke Todaka; Research Scientist
Plant Genomic Network Research Team