Evaluation of the effect of TuMV infection on drought tolerance and water management at the whole plant level in Arabidopsis

MANACORDA, CARLOS A; CÁCERES, PABLO DANIEL; SUTKA, MOIRA; BAROLI, IRENE; AMODEO, GABRIELA; ASURMENDI, SEBASTIÁN

Rosario

Congreso; XXXIV Argentinian Meeting of Plant Physiology (RAFV 23); 2023

SOCIEDAD ARGENTINA DE FISIOLOGÍA VEGETAL

Evaluation of the effect of TuMV infection on drought tolerance and water management at the whole plant level in ArabidopsisManacorda CA, Cáceres P, Sutka M, Baroli I, Amodeo G, Asurmendi S. The assessment of the interaction effect between different types of stresses simultaneously affecting plants has received great interest in recent years, since it is considered that it represents in a more realistic way the conditions that crops must face in the field. In the present work, the effect that TuMV infection has on the water balance in Arabidopsis was evaluated both at the rosette level (stomatal conductance, instantaneous dehydration rate, relative water consumption, RWC, osmolarity) and at the root level (root hydraulic conductivity, osmolarity). These physiological measurements were accompanied by anatomical measurements to estimate the relative growth under infection in different organs. In addition, survival measurements were carried out to estimate putative changes in drought tolerance produced by the viral infection. TuMV was found to cause profound changes in water management at both the foliar and root levels. In addition, drought competition experiments showed that TuMV lowers drought tolerance in Arabidopsis, evidencing a negative synergistic effect for the plant under the interaction of both stressors when they act simultaneously.