A Central Role of Abscisic Acid in Stress-Regulated Carbohydrate Metabolism

BACKGROUND: Abiotic stresses adversely affect plant growth and development. The hormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays a central role in the response and adaptation to environmental constraints. However, apart from the well established role of ABA in regulating gene expression programmes, little is known about its function in plant stress metabolism. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using an integrative multiparallel approach of metabolome and transcriptome analyses, we studied the dynamic response of the model glyophyte Arabidopsis thaliana to ABA and high salt conditions. Our work shows that salt stress induces complex re-adjustment of carbohydrate metabolism and that ABA triggers the initial steps of carbon mobilisation. SIGNIFICANCE: These findings open new perspectives on how high salinity and ABA impact on central carbohydrate metabolism and highlight the power of iterative combinatorial approaches of non-targeted and hypothesis-driven experiments in stress biology.