Antagonistic effects of abscisic acid and jasmonates on salt stress-inducible transcripts in rice roots

Abscisic acid (ABA) and jasmonates have been implicated in responses to water deficit and wounding. We compared the molecular and physiological effects of jasmonic acid (JA) (< or = 10 microM), ABA, and salt stress in roots of rice. JA markedly induced a cationic peroxidase, two novel 32- and 28-kD proteins, acidic PR-1 and PR-10 pathogenesis-related proteins, and the salt stress-responsive SalT protein in roots. Most JA-responsive proteins (JIPs) from roots also accumulated when plants were subjected to salt stress. None of the JIPs accumulated when plants were treated with ABA. JA did not induce an ABA-responsive group 3 late-embryogenesis abundant (LEA) protein. Salt stress and ABA but not JA induced oslea3 transcript accumulation. By contrast, JA, ABA, and salt stress induced transcript accumulation of salT and osdrr, which encodes a rice PR-10 protein. However, ABA also negatively affected salT transcript accumulation, whereas JA negatively affected ABA-induced oslea3 transcript levels. Endogenous root ABA and methyl jasmonate levels showed a differential increase with the dose and the duration of salt stress. The results indicate that ABA and jasmonates antagonistically regulated the expression of salt stress-inducible proteins associated with water deficit or defense responses.