Functional analysis of the ABA-responsive protein family in ABA and stress signal transduction in Arabidopsis

The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays an important role in plant growth and development, for example in seed dormancy and germination, as well as in plant responses to environmental stresses, such as drought and high salinity. Previous studies have shown that ABA regulates the expression of genes with an ABA-responsive element (ABRE) and their corresponding physiological responses. Bioinformatics analysis identified a GRAM domain-containing gene family that has a multiple ABRE cis-element, which was termed the ABA-responsive protein (ABR) family. To analyze the function of the ABR family, we identified homozygous T-DNA insertion mutants and constructed abr1, 2, 3 double mutants and triple mutant. The abr1, abr2 and abr3 single mutants showed a normal phenotype; however, the germination of seeds of the double mutants and triple mutant were insensitive to ABA, NaCl, mannitol and glucose. ABR1-GFP was distributed as a punctate structure in the cytosol and may be localized in the endomembrane system. The ABR2-GFP and ABR3-GFP proteins localized in the cytoplasm. In addition, ABR1, ABR2 and ABR3 were expressed in various tissues, and could be induced by several abiotic stresses, especially by ABA. The expressions of these genes were significantly suppressed in aba2, abi1 and abi2 null mutants. These results suggested that the ABR family may act downstream of ABI1 and ABI2 in the ABA signal transduction process in plants.