BnA.JAZ5 Attenuates Drought Tolerance in Rapeseed through Mediation of ABA–JA Crosstalk

Abstract

Drought stress reduces water availability in plant cells and influences rapeseed yield. Currently, key genetic regulators that contribute to rapeseed response to drought remain largely unexplored, which limits breeding of drought-resistant rapeseed. In this study, we found that Brassica napus JASMONATE ZIM-DOMAIN 5 (BnA.JAZ5), one of the transcriptional repressors functioning in the jasmonate (JA) signaling pathway, was triggered by drought treatment in rapeseed, and drought-susceptibility increased in BnA.JAZ5-overexpressing rapeseed plants as compared to wild-type plants, resulting in a lower survival rate after recovery from dehydration. After recovery for 3 days, 22–40% of p35S::BnA.JAZ5 transgenic plants survived, while approximately 61% of wild-type plants survived. Additionally, seed germination of BnA.JAZ5-overexpressing rapeseed was hyposensitive to abscisic acid (ABA). The germination rate of five transgenic lines was 32~42% under 9 µM ABA treatment, while the germination rate of wild-type plants was 14%. We also found that the average stomatal density of five overexpressing lines was 371~446/mm2, which is higher than that of wild-type (232/mm2) plants under normal conditions. These results indicate that BnA.JAZ5 regulated drought response in an ABA-dependent manner, possibly by affecting stomatal density. Interestingly, methyl jasmonate (MeJA) treatment rescued the ABA-hyposensitive seed germination, revealing crosstalk between JAZ5-meidated JA and the ABA signaling pathway. Taken together, our results suggest that BnA.JAZ5 attenuated drought resistance through the ABA-dependent pathway, which could represent important genetic loci for drought-resistant rapeseed breeding.