Abstract
Plants continuously respond to changing environmental conditions to prevent damage and maintain optimal performance. To regulate gas exchange with the environment and to control abiotic stress relief, plants have pores in their leaf epidermis, called stomata. Multiple environmental signals affect the opening and closing of these stomata. High temperatures promote stomatal opening (to cool down), and drought induces stomatal closing (to prevent water loss). Coinciding stress conditions may evoke conflicting stomatal responses, but the cellular mechanisms to resolve these conflicts are unknown. Here we demonstrate that the high-temperature-associated kinase TARGET OF TEMPERATURE 3 directly controls the activity of plasma membrane H+-ATPases to induce stomatal opening. OPEN STOMATA 1, which regulates stomatal closure to prevent water loss during drought stress, directly inactivates TARGET OF TEMPERATURE 3 through phosphorylation. Taken together, this signalling axis harmonizes stomatal opening and closing under high temperatures and/or drought. In the context of global climate change, understanding how different stress signals converge on stomatal regulation allows the development of climate-change-ready crops.
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Data availability
The data are available in the supplementary materials. The mass spectrometry proteomics data are available via ProteomeXchange with the identifier PXD044300. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
We thank D. Van Damme and B. De Rybel for critical comments on the manuscript. We thank E. Farmer for providing the ost2-2D seeds, M. B. Palmgren for the aha1-6 seeds and the Eurasian Arabidopsis Stock Centre for providing various seeds. This work was supported by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 grant no. PID2020-113100RB (to P.L.R.), Graduate School Green Top Sectors grant no. GSGT.2018.007 of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (to M.P. and M.v.Z.), UGent BOF postdoctoral mandate no. 01P12219 (to L.D.V.), UGent BOF doctoral mandate no. 01CD7122 (to X.X.), China Scholarship Council grant no. 201708340063 (to R.W.), China Scholarship Council grant no. 201706350153 (to X.X.), China Scholarship Council grant no. 201806170025 (to Z.J.) and China Scholarship Council grant no. 202204910025 (to H.L.).
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I.D.S. and L.D.V. conceptualized the project. P.L.R., M.P., M.v.Z., L.D.V., Z.J. and X.X. acquired the funding. X.X., H.L., L.D.V., M.P., N.L., B.V.D.C., G.A.P., Z.J., R.W., S.M.D. and S.L.Y.V. conducted the investigation. I.D.S., L.D.V., K.G., M.v.Z., P.L.R., H.N. and S.V. supervised the project. T.K. provided tools for the research. X.X., L.D.V. and I.D.S. visualized the data. X.X., I.D.S. and L.D.V. wrote the original draft of the paper. X.X., M.P., Z.J., K.G., N.L., P.L.R., M.v.Z., S.M.D., S.V., H.N., L.D.V. and I.D.S. reviewed and edited the paper.
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Supplementary Figs. 1–29, Methods, uncropped images and references.
Supplementary Data
Statistical source data for the supplementary figures.
Supplementary Table 1
List of identified phosphosites and protein of AHA1 from tobacco infiltration IP–mass spectrometry.
Supplementary Table 2
List of identified phosphosites and protein of TOT3 from tobacco infiltration IP–mass spectrometry.
Supplementary Table 3
List of identified phosphosites and proteins from GFP–TOT3 IP–mass spectrometry data in Arabidopsis exposed to high temperatures or ABA.
Supplementary Table 4
List of identified phosphosites of TOT3 from phosphoprofiling of Arabidopsis seedlings treated with progressing drought stress (our data) or mannitol.
Supplementary Table 5
Primers used in this study.
Supplementary Table 6
Plasmids generated and used in this study.
Source data
Source Data Figs. 1–4
Statistical source data.
Source Data Figs. 2 and 3
Unprocessed western blots and/or gels.
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Xu, X., Liu, H., Praat, M. et al. Stomatal opening under high temperatures is controlled by the OST1-regulated TOT3–AHA1 module. Nat. Plants 11, 105–117 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-024-01859-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-024-01859-w
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