Recently, a paper entitled “Regulation of drought tolerance by the F-box protein MAX2 in Arabidopsis” was published in Plant Physiology (doi:10.1104/pp.113.226837). The study was completed by Qingyun Bu’s group-Rice molecular breeding Laboratory of Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other collaborators. The results discovered an important role for MAX2 in plant responses to abiotic stress conditions.

MAX2(More Axillary growth 2) was an important component in the plant hormone-Strigolacton signal conduction, and its functions were reported in Arabidopsis, Oryza sativa and Petunia hybrida. In addition to the effect of tiller phenotype regulated by strigolacton, MAX2 also influenced many aspects of plant growth and development such as plant architecture, photomorphogenesis, senescence. However, the functions concerning MAX2’s response to abiotic stress was not still reported.

Our results showed that MAX2  positively regulated plant responses to drought and abiotic stresses, whereas negatively regulated the responses to ABA during seed germination and early seedling development. We provided evidence showing that the MAX2 protein not only involved in strigalactone signal conduction, but also play an important role in plant response to abiotic stresses specifically.