Abstract
Intracellular protein trafficking affects a wide range of developmental processes. However, little is known about its role in resistance to environmental stresses. To better understand the role of protein trafficking in cold stressed induced root growth and development, we investigated the response of the available Arabidopsis trafficking mutants to cold stress, and also screened new mutants. Both the SNARE mutant vam3, and retromer mutant snx1 showed a delayed recovery to gravity after cold stress, while the knockout mutant of RabA4C showed a faster recovery. For root growth recovery, vam3 and snx1 showed a delayed response compared with wild-type. Collectively, these results suggest that intracellular protein trafficking regulates the plant growth and development under cold stress. Among the screened mutants, ems41-16 showed delayed recovery to root growth and gravity response after cold stress, while ems38-1 showed an opposite phenotype, faster recovery of root growth and gravity response. Identification of these mutated genes will enable us to better understand the role of protein trafficking in cold stress induced inhibition of growth and development.
