When drought or excessive rain occurs, plants can suffer. But how much can they withstand? That's a question that scientists have tackled by taking a closer look at a family of proteins that play a vital role when it comes to a plant's ability to withstand environmental stresses.
Cellular membranes are the barrier between the cell and its external environment. This means that the membrane needs to have a decent amount of receptor systems to "figure out" exactly what's going on in the environment, process that information, and then tell other cells how to respond.
In this latest study, the researchers decided to look a bit closer at the cell membrane to see what reacted to the environment. They found a family of proteins, called the CAR proteins, that actually cluster together to create a series of points throughout the membranes. These can be used as key signaling proteins in order to carry out adaptive functions.
"These [CAR] proteins form a kind of landing strip, acting as molecular antennas that call out to other proteins as and when necessary to orchestrate the required cellular response," Pedro Luis Rodriguez from the IBMCP said.
When drought occurs, plants close up the tiny holes in their leaves in order to retain water. When it's extremely wet, the opposite holds true.
"In a medium-sized cell, the distance a molecule must travel from the point at which it synthesizes to the membrane itself is comparable, relatively, to the distance between Madrid and Cadiz," Armando Albert, fellow researcher, said. "For this journey there are mediators, both during and at the point of arrival, where they carry out a fundamental role in docking the signaling proteins in the appropriate cellular context."
CAR proteins acts as one of these mediators. This means that they play an important role when it comes to regulating a plant's response to environmental stress.
The findings help researchers better understand plant biology. In addition, it may help researchers develop plants that are more resistant to environmental stresses, such as drought. This could result in hardier crops that could be important in the future with the continuation of climate change.
The findings are published in the 2016 journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
