Application of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) improves fruit quality and rootstock drought tolerance in apple

GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid) plays a multifaceted role in plant growth, fruit quality, and tolerance to abiotic stresses. However, its physiological roles and mechanisms in the fruit quality and response to long-term drought stress in apple remain unelucidated. To investigate the effect of GABA on apple fruit quality and drought tolerance, we sprayed exogenous GABA on apple cultivar "Cripps Pink" and irrigated rootstock M.9-T337 with GABA, respectively. Results showed that exogenous GABA could effectively improve the fruit quality of "Cripps Pink", including increased sugar-to-acid ratio, flesh firmness, pericarp malleability, and GABA content, as well as reduced fruit acidity. In addition, pretreatment of M.9-T337 plants with GABA improved their tolerance to both long- and short-term drought stress. Specifically, 1 mM exogenous GABA increased the net photosynthetic rate, relative leaf water content, root-to-shoot ratio, and water use efficiency under long-term drought stress, and delayed the increased of the relative electrolyte leakage under short-term drought stress. RNA-seq analysis identified 1271 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between nontreated and GABA-pretreated plants under short-term drought stress. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis of these DEGs revealed that GABA may enhance plant drought resistance by upregulating the expression of genes related to "Biosynthesis of secondary metabolites", "MAPK signaling pathway", "Glutathione metabolism", and "Carbon fixation in photosynthetic organisms". In conclusion, these results revealed that exogenous GABA can improve fruit quality and enhance drought tolerance in apple.