Arabidopsis cysteine-rich receptor-like kinase 45 functions in the responses to abscisic acid and abiotic stresses

• Altered expression of CRK45 affects ABA sensitivity during seed germination and seedling growth.
• Altered expression of CRK45 affects salt, glouse, drought sensitivity.
• Overexpression of CRK45 increased the expression of ABA biosynthetic genes.

The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) regulates seed germination, plant growth and development, and response to abiotic stresses such as drought and salt stresses. Receptor-like kinases are well known signaling components that mediate plant responses to developmental and environmental stimuli. Here, we characterized the biological function of an ABA and stress-inducible cysteine-rich receptor-like protein kinase, CRK45, in ABA signaling in Arabidopsis thaliana. The crk45 mutant was less sensitive to ABA than the wild type during seed germination and early seedling development, whereas CRK45 overexpression plants were more sensitive to ABA compared to the wild type. Furthermore, overexpression of CRK45 led to hypersensitivity to salt and glucose inhibition of seed germination, whereas the crk45 mutant showed the opposite phenotypes. In addition, CRK45 overexpression plants had enhanced tolerance to drought. Gene expression analyses revealed that the expression of representative stress-responsive genes was significantly enhanced in CRK45 overexpression plants in response to salt stress. ABA biosynthetic genes such as NCED3, 2NCED5, 3ABA2, 4 and AAO3 5 were also constitutively elevated in the CRK45 overexpression plants. We concluded that CRK45 plays an important role in ABA signaling that regulates Arabidopsis seeds germination, early seedling development and abiotic stresses response, by positively regulating ABA responses in these processes.