Variation in Arabidopsis flooding responses identifies numerous putative "tolerance genes"

Abstract

Plant survival in flooded environments requires a combinatory response to multiple stress conditions such as limited light availability, reduced gas exchange and nutrient uptake. The ability to fine-tune the molecular response at the transcriptional and/or post-transcriptional level that can eventually lead to metabolic and anatomical adjustments are the underlying requirements to confer tolerance. Previously, we compared the transcriptomic adjustment of submergence tolerant, intolerant accessions and identified a core conserved and genotype-specific response to flooding stress, identifying numerous 'putative' tolerance genes. Here, we performed genome wide association analyses on 81 natural Arabidopsis accessions that identified 30 additional SNP markers associated with flooding tolerance. We argue that, given the many genes associated with flooding tolerance in Arabidopsis, improving resistance to submergence requires numerous genetic changes.