The Mechanism of Seed Priming with Abscisic Acid for Enhancing Cuticle Deposition Under Drought Stress: Phenotypic and Transcriptomic Insights

Luhua Yao, Sennan Li, Nana Zhou and Yanjun Guo ()
Additional contact information
Luhua Yao: Department of Agriculture and Forestry, Hainan Tropical Ocean University, Sanya 572022, China
Sennan Li: Department of Agriculture and Forestry, Hainan Tropical Ocean University, Sanya 572022, China
Nana Zhou: Department of Agriculture and Forestry, Hainan Tropical Ocean University, Sanya 572022, China
Yanjun Guo: College of Grassland Science, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao 266109, China

Agriculture, 2025, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: Plant cuticles are crucial for protecting plants from various environmental stresses. Seed priming with abscisic acid (ABA) enhances crop stress tolerance, but its molecular mechanisms in cuticular wax and cutin biosynthesis remain unclear. This study investigated ABA-priming’s role in boosting cuticular wax and cutin accumulation in sweet sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor L.) using physiological and transcriptomic analyses. Abscisic acid priming increased leaf wax (37.7%) and cutin (25.6%) under drought, reducing water loss (9.8–36.6%) and improving leaf water content (28.4–120%). Transcriptomics identified 921 differentially expressed genes, including key fatty acid biosynthesis genes (ADH2, DES2, KAS2). Co-expression analysis revealed the synergistic regulation of wax and cutin biosynthesis by the abscisic acid and jasmonic acid (JA) pathways. Exogenous ABA and JA application confirmed their roles, with combined treatment increasing wax content by 71.7% under drought stress. These findings were validated in other sweet sorghum cultivars (DLS and ML8000), highlighting the potential of ABA priming as a universal strategy to enhance wax deposition in crops. Our study provides new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying ABA-induced drought resistance and offers a practical approach for improving crop resilience in water-limited environments.

Keywords: abscisic acid (ABA); wax biosynthesis; drought resilience; jasmonic acid (JA); seed priming; sorghum; RNA-seq (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/11/1124/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/11/1124/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:15:y:2025:i:11:p:1124-:d:1662783

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().