Morphological and biochemical evaluation of tolerance to water deficit identifies SlCLE9 as a novel regulator of drought stress
- 1University of Maryland, College Park
Abstract
We performed a screening to evaluate the responses to water deficit before the flowering stage in a panel of 31 genotypes composed of one commercial hybrid, one wild species, multiple ex-PVP (vintage) lines, several commercial heirlooms from the Northeast USA, Mexican landraces from hot and humid environments and genome edited lines with altered flowering and inflorescence traits. We characterized 18 different morphological, physiological and biochemical traits to assess the response to 40% water deficit. We observed diverse morphological, physiological and biochemical responses across the 31 genotypes screened, suggesting the presence of useful variation for breeding for drought tolerance in cultivated tomato. Interestingly, some heirlooms exhibited superior performance under drought, suggesting they can be used as donors to discover novel genes involved in drought responses. Unexpectedly, we found mutants in SlCLE9, a paralog of the stem cell regulator SlCLV3 known to co-regulate meristem proliferation in tomato, exhibited enhanced drought tolerance. Notably, the slcle9 mutant also conferred drought tolerance when used as rootstock with grafted scions from our reference cultivar M82, suggesting SlCLE9 influence root architecture and drought response. Consistent with this, we found SlCLE9 is transcriptionally upregulated in roots and leaves during drought stress, and exogenous application of SlCLE9 modifies root growth and response to drought. Altogether, our screening uncovered new potential trait donors for breeding against drought stress and describes a novel role for SlCLE9 in drought tolerance.
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BibTeX
@misc{ekinci2026morphological,
title = {{Morphological and biochemical evaluation of tolerance to water deficit identifies SlCLE9 as a novel regulator of drought stress}},
author = {M. Ekinci and S. Cirik and H. Le and A. Anilal and J. Oxendine and R. Wang and S. C. Grant and R. K. Upadhyay and C. A. Seller and D. Rodriguez-Leal},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.22.753559},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.22.753559v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Morphological and biochemical evaluation of tolerance to water deficit identifies SlCLE9 as a novel regulator of drought stress
AU - M. Ekinci
AU - S. Cirik
AU - H. Le
AU - A. Anilal
AU - J. Oxendine
AU - R. Wang
AU - S. C. Grant
AU - R. K. Upadhyay
AU - C. A. Seller
AU - D. Rodriguez-Leal
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.22.753559
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.22.753559v1
AB - We performed a screening to evaluate the responses to water deficit before the flowering stage in a panel of 31 genotypes composed of one commercial hybrid, one wild species, multiple ex-PVP (vintage) lines, several commercial heirlooms from the Northeast USA, Mexican landraces from hot and humid environments and genome edited lines with altered flowering and inflorescence traits. We characterized 18 different morphological, physiological and biochemical traits to assess the response to 40% water deficit. We observed diverse morphological, physiological and biochemical responses across the 31 genotypes screened, suggesting the presence of useful variation for breeding for drought tolerance in cultivated tomato. Interestingly, some heirlooms exhibited superior performance under drought, suggesting they can be used as donors to discover novel genes involved in drought responses. Unexpectedly, we found mutants in SlCLE9, a paralog of the stem cell regulator SlCLV3 known to co-regulate meristem proliferation in tomato, exhibited enhanced drought tolerance. Notably, the slcle9 mutant also conferred drought tolerance when used as rootstock with grafted scions from our reference cultivar M82, suggesting SlCLE9 influence root architecture and drought response. Consistent with this, we found SlCLE9 is transcriptionally upregulated in roots and leaves during drought stress, and exogenous application of SlCLE9 modifies root growth and response to drought. Altogether, our screening uncovered new potential trait donors for breeding against drought stress and describes a novel role for SlCLE9 in drought tolerance.
ER -