Key genes involved in desiccation tolerance and dormancy across life forms
Résumé
tDesiccation tolerance (DT, the ability of certain organisms to survive severe dehydration) was a key traitin the evolution of life in terrestrial environments. Likely, the development of desiccation-tolerant lifeforms was accompanied by the acquisition of dormancy or a dormancy-like stage as a second powerfuladaptation to cope with variations in the terrestrial environment. These naturally stress tolerant lifeforms may be a good source of genetic information to generate stress tolerant crops to face a futurewith predicted higher occurrence of drought. By mining for key genes and mechanisms related to DT anddormancy conserved across different species and life forms, unique candidate key genes may be identified.Here we identify several of these putative key genes, shared among multiple organisms, encoding forproteins involved in protection, growth and energy metabolism. Mutating a selection of these genes in themodel plant Arabidopsis thaliana resulted in clear DT-, dormancy- and other seed-associated phenotypes,showing the efficiency and power of our approach and paves the way for the development of drought-stress tolerant crops. Our analysis supports a co-evolution of DT and dormancy by shared mechanismsthat favour survival and adaptation to ever-changing environments with strong seasonal fluctuations.