CCoAOMT1 Plays a Role in Drought Stress Response via ROS- and ABA-Dependent Manners.

Plants possess adaptive reprogramed modules to prolonged environmental stresses, including adjustment of metabolism and gene expression for physiological and morphological adaptation. encodes a caffeoyl CoA O-methyltransferase and is known to play an important role in adaptation of plants to prolonged saline stress. In this study, we showed that the gene plays a role in drought stress response. Transcript of was induced by salt, dehydration (drought), and methyl viologen (MV), and loss of function mutants of , and exhibit hypersensitive phenotypes to drought and MV stresses. The mutants accumulated higher level of HO in the leaves and expressed lower levels of drought-responsive genes including , , , and as well as and encoding ABA biosynthesis enzymes during drought stress compared to wild-type plants. A seed germination assay of mutants in the presence of ABA also revealed that functions in ABA response. Our data suggests that plays a positive role in response to drought stress response by regulating HO accumulation and ABA signaling.