Abscisic acid (ABA) action on plastid transcription in Arabidopsis

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Plant hormones are essential regulators of growth and development and involved in the response of plants to environmental cues. Receptors and members of signalling chains have been identified that are crucial for hormone action. Plant hormones affect the activity of thousands of genes in the nuclear genome. In the light of the wealth of data that is available on hormone-induced changes in the expression of nuclear genes, notably also including genes encoding proteins that are localized to plastids, it is astounding that near to nothing is known about the action of phytohormones on the expression of plastid/chloroplast genes. This is all the more surprising as alterations in the energy metabolism (photosynthesis, respiration) belong to the hormone-controlled responses of the plant to biotic and abiotic stresses and are part of the metabolic changes associated with senescence. The project will focus on the action of abscisic acid (ABA) on chloroplast gene expression. ABA is synthesized in the plastids and discussed as a plastid factor involved in retrograde signalling to the nucleus. This study aims at the identification of ABA-controlled chloroplast genes and of involved ciselements, transcription factors and components of signal transduction chain(s).