Identification of the AQP members involved in abiotic stress responses from Arabidopsis

Aquaporins (AQPs) constitute a highly diverse family of water channel proteins that play crucial biological functions in plant growth and development and stress physiology. In Arabidopsis, 35 AQPs are classified into four subfamilies (PIPs, TIPs, NIPs and SIPs). However, knowledge about the roles of different subfamily AQPs remains limited. Here, we explored the chromosomal location, gene structure and expression patterns of all AQPs in different tissues or under different abiotic stresses based on available microarray data. Tissue expression analysis showed that different AQPs had various expression patterns in tissues (root, leaf, flower and seed). Expression profiles under stress conditions revealed that most AQPs were responsive to osmotic, salt and drought stresses. Phenotypic and physiological identification showed that Tip2;2 loss-of-function mutant exhibited less sensitive to abiotic stresses (mannitol, NaCl and PEG) compared with wild-type, as evident by analysis of germination rate, root growth, survival rate, ion leakage, malondialdehyde (MDA) and proline contents. Mutant of TIP2;2 modulated the transcript levels of SOS1, SOS2, SOS3, DREB1A, DREB2A and P5CS1, under abiotic stress conditions. This study provides a basis for further functional identification of stress-related candidate AQPs in Arabidopsis.