Agonist, antagonist and signaling modulators of ABA receptor for agronomic and post-harvest management

• Published in: Plant physiology and biochemistry Vol. 148; pp. 10 - 25
• Main Authors: Gupta, Manish K., Lenka, Sangram K., Gupta, Swati, Rawal, Ravindra K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: France Elsevier Masson SAS 01.03.2020
• Subjects: ABA receptors; Abiotic stress; Abscisic Acid - metabolism; Agriculture; Arabidopsis; Arabidopsis Proteins - agonists; Arabidopsis Proteins - antagonists & inhibitors; Arabidopsis Proteins - metabolism; Drought tolerance; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Plant Growth Regulators; Pyrabactin; Signal Transduction; ABA; PYL; ABA receptors; Pyrabactin; PP2C; RCAR; Abiotic stress; Drought tolerance; PYR1
• ISSN: 0981-9428; 1873-2690
• DOI: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2019.12.023

Abscisic acid (ABA) is a ubiquitous phytohormone, plays important roles in several physiological processes, including stress adaptation, flowering, seed germination, fruit ripening, and leaf senescence etc. ABA binds with START domain proteins called Pyrabactin Resistance1 (PYR1)/PYR1-like (PYL)/Regulatory Components of ABA Receptors (RCARs) and controls the activity of PP2C phosphatase proteins and in turn the ABA-dependent signaling pathway. Fourteen ABA receptors have been identified in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and have shown to be involved in various biological functions. Under field conditions, exogenous application of ABA produces inadequate physiological response due to its rapid conversion into the biologically inactive metabolites. ABA shows selective binding preferences to PYL receptor subtypes and hence produces pleiotropic physiological and phenotypic effects which limit the usage of ABA in agriculture. An agrochemical meant for ameliorating the undesirable physiological effect of the plant should ideally have positive biological attributes without affecting the normal growth, development, and yield. Therefore, to overcome the limitations of ABA for its usage in various agricultural applications, several types of ABA-mimicking agents have been developed. Many compounds have been identified as having significant ABA-agonist/antagonist activity and can be employed to reverse the excessive/moderate ABA action. The present review highlights the potential usage of ABA signaling modulators for managing agronomic and postharvest traits. Besides, designing, development and versatile usage of ABA-mimicking compounds displaying ABA agonists and antagonist activities are discussed in detail. •ABA-metabolism regulation through agrochemicals is a viable strategy for managing major agronomic and postharvest traits.•ABA and its analogs show selective binding to ABA receptor subtypes imparting modulatory effect on ABA receptors•Ligand bound 3D structures of ABA receptors and computational modeling are invaluable for the synthesis of new compounds•Chemoinformatics knowledge of ABA mimetics to add value for commercial agriculture and post-harvest crop management.•Designer ABA receptor antagonist/agonist will accelerate plant breeding with optimized ABA-responsive plants.