Conserved and species-specific guard cell transcriptional responses and drought physiology in Arabidopsis and tomato
Abstract
Crop productivity is severely threatened by climate change-related stresses, including drought stress. During drought, physiological and transcriptional changes occur in guard cells to regulate stomatal closure and minimize excess water loss. Tomato is an important crop species in temperate regions, with a high water requirement. To further understand the drought response in tomato, we performed RNA-seq on guard cell-enriched samples of plants subjected to severe drought stress. We investigated drought-responsive changes in gene expression and alternative splicing, including the role of ABA signaling genes. Comparing this data to previous work on the model species Arabidopsis thaliana, we highlighted an increased level of transcriptional reprogramming in tomato. These differences translated to the physiological level, where we observed earlier stomatal closure during progressive drought in tomato compared to A. thaliana using thermal imaging. Overall, this study sheds new light on tomato GCs during drought, and emphasizes the importance of translational studies on crop species.
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BibTeX
@article{khan2026conserved,
title = {{Conserved and species-specific guard cell transcriptional responses and drought physiology in Arabidopsis and tomato}},
author = {Hasna Khan and Gabrielle Marczell and Asher Pasha and Nicholas J. Provart},
journal = {Frontiers in Plant Science},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.3389/fpls.2026.1943556},
url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2026.1943556},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Conserved and species-specific guard cell transcriptional responses and drought physiology in Arabidopsis and tomato
AU - Hasna Khan
AU - Gabrielle Marczell
AU - Asher Pasha
AU - Nicholas J. Provart
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/02
JO - Frontiers in Plant Science
DO - 10.3389/fpls.2026.1943556
UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2026.1943556
AB - Crop productivity is severely threatened by climate change-related stresses, including drought stress. During drought, physiological and transcriptional changes occur in guard cells to regulate stomatal closure and minimize excess water loss. Tomato is an important crop species in temperate regions, with a high water requirement. To further understand the drought response in tomato, we performed RNA-seq on guard cell-enriched samples of plants subjected to severe drought stress. We investigated drought-responsive changes in gene expression and alternative splicing, including the role of ABA signaling genes. Comparing this data to previous work on the model species Arabidopsis thaliana, we highlighted an increased level of transcriptional reprogramming in tomato. These differences translated to the physiological level, where we observed earlier stomatal closure during progressive drought in tomato compared to A. thaliana using thermal imaging. Overall, this study sheds new light on tomato GCs during drought, and emphasizes the importance of translational studies on crop species.
SN - 1664-462X
ER -