press release.<\/a><\/p>\nLike all plants,\u00a0Arabidopsis\u00a0depends on water. It absorbs moisture through microscopic pores on its leaf surfaces \u2014 but these same pores also create an open doorway for pathogens. The plant must constantly balance the need to take in water with the need to defend itself.<\/p>\n
That balancing act becomes even more critical after drought. In dry conditions,\u00a0Arabidopsis\u00a0closes its pores, halts growth, and conserves resources. Once water returns, the pores snap open to rehydrate the plant \u2014 leaving its internal tissues suddenly exposed to the outside world. The question researchers set out to answer: how does a plant protect itself during this vulnerable moment of drought recovery?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know a lot about what\u2019s happening in plants during drought, yet we know next to nothing about what happens during that critical recovery period,\u201d says first author Natanella Illouz-Eliaz, a postdoctoral researcher in Ecker\u2019s lab. \u201cThis recovery period is incredibly genetically active and complex, as we\u2019ve already discovered processes we had no idea \u2014 or even assumed \u2014 would be a part of recovery. Now we know definitively that recovery is worth studying more moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Speedy, Single-Cell, Spatially Aware Study<\/p>\n
The team rehydrated drought-stressed\u00a0Arabidopsis\u00a0plants and tracked how their leaves responded at the genetic level. Starting just 15 minutes after watering and continuing through 260 minutes, they monitored shifts in gene expression. This rapid, high-resolution timeline sets the study apart \u2014 plant biologists rarely capture changes so soon after rehydration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s really incredible here,\u201d adds Illouz-Eliaz, \u201cis we would have entirely missed this discovery had we not decided to capture data at these early time points.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although every cell in an\u00a0Arabidopsis\u00a0leaf carries the same genetic code, each cell activates different sets of genes that shape its identity and role. To capture these fine-scale differences, researchers turned to advanced sequencing technologies: single-cell and spatial transcriptomics.<\/p>\n
Traditional approaches involved grinding up an entire leaf and measuring only the average gene activity \u2014 a method that masked the diversity of individual cells. Single-cell transcriptomics, by contrast, reveals gene expression in each cell, offering a much sharper view of cellular dynamics. Spatial transcriptomics adds another layer, mapping that expression back onto the intact tissue. Together, these methods let scientists see not only what each cell is doing, but also how neighboring cells interact during drought and recovery.<\/p>\n
Drought Recovery-Induced Immunity (DRII)<\/p>\n
Within just 15 minutes of rewatering, dormant genes in\u00a0Arabidopsis\u00a0leaves began firing up. Gene activity surged cell by cell until thousands were switched on, launching a powerful immune response. The researchers call this defense surge Drought Recovery-Induced Immunity (DRII). During the vulnerable window of rehydration, DRII shields the plant from pathogens, buying it critical time to recover and resume growth.<\/p>\n
After observing DRII in\u00a0Arabidopsis, the team wondered whether tomatoes \u2014 both wild and cultivated \u2014 showed the same response. They did. Like in\u00a0Arabidopsis, DRII boosted pathogen resistance in tomatoes, suggesting this rapid immune surge may be conserved across many crop species.<\/p>\n
Still, key questions remain. Rehydration begins in the roots, yet gene activity in the leaves changes within just 15 minutes. How does the signal move so quickly from belowground to aboveground \u2014 and what exactly is that signal?<\/p>\n
The researchers also propose that DRII challenges how we think about plant stress. Instead of merely toggling between survival and growth, plants may be preparing for the critical recovery phase once water returns. The balance between short-term survival and long-term resilience could depend on a system that gauges the severity of stress and anticipates what comes next.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur results reveal that drought recovery is not a passive process but a highly dynamic reprogramming of the plant\u2019s immune system,\u201d says Ecker. \u201cBy defining the early genetic events that occur within minutes of rehydration, we can begin to uncover the molecular signals that coordinate stress recovery and explore how these mechanisms might be harnessed to improve crop resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other authors include Jingting Yu, Joseph Swift, Kathryn Lande, Bruce Jow, Lia Partida-Garcia, Travis Lee, Rosa Gomez Castanon, William Owens, Chynna Bowman, Emma Osgood, Joseph Nery, and Tatsuya Nobori of Salk; and Za Khai Tuang, Adi Yaaran, Yotam Zait, and Saul Burdman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
The work was supported by the United States\u2013Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund (FI-601-2020), George E. Hewitt Foundation for Medical Research, Weizmann Institute of Science, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, National Institutes of Health (K99GM154136, NCI CSSG P30 CA014195, NIA P30 AG068635), Henry L. Guenther Foundation, and Waitt Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Salk Institute scientists reveal plants supercharge their immune systems after drought, pointing to genetic strategies for hardier crops.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,78726,13962,19376,66,19377],"class_list":["post-147583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment-climate","tag-farming","tag-featured-europe","tag-science","tag-seed-world-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}