ArticleTree physiology2025
Elucidating the drought-responsive changes in poplar cuticular waxes: a GWAS analysis of genes involved in fatty acid biosynthesis.
Article in Tree physiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Toward the crystallographic and microstructural mechanisms of plant leaf waxes as diffusion barriers.CrystEngComm · 2026Review
- Telomere-to-telomere assemblies of chromosome 10 reveal complex adaptive variation of 3-ketoacyl-CoA-synthases inForestry research · 2026Article
- Cuticular wax profiling ofFrontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Integrated multi-omics analysis reveals candidate genes for cuticular wax biosynthesis and molecular characteristics of a glossy mutant in rapeseed under natural drought stress.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Integrative transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses of the drought response mechanisms of stem spines in desert plants from the Ebinur Lake.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
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Abstract
Drought and episodic drought events are major impending impacts of climate change, limiting the productivity of plants and especially trees due to their inherent high transpiration rates. One common mechanism used by plants to cope with drought stress is to change the composition of their leaf cuticular waxes. Cuticular waxes are essential for controlling non-stomatal water loss and are typically composed of a homologous series of very-long-chain fatty acid-derived compounds, as well as flavonoids, tocopherols, triterpenoids, and phytosterols. In this study, we compared the cuticular waxes of 339 natural accessions of Populus trichocarpa (Torr. & Gray) (black cottonwood) grown under control and drought conditions in a common garden. A Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) was then used to identify candidate genes associated with cuticular wax biosynthesis and/or its regulation. Although no major differences were observed in total wax load when subject to drought conditions, the amounts of the individual wax constituents were indeed responsive to drought. Specifically, changes in alkenes, alcohols, esters and aldehydes were evident, and suggest that they contribute to the drought response/tolerance in poplar. GWAS uncovered several genes linked to fatty acid biosynthesis, including CER1, CER3, CER4, FATB, FAB1, FAR3, FAR4, KCS and a homologue of SOH1, as well as other candidate genes that may be involved in coordinating the drought responses in poplar trees. Our findings provide new evidence that genotype-specific shifts in wax composition, rather than total wax accumulation, contribute to drought adaptation in poplar. Additionally, we show that genetic variation in key wax biosynthetic genes drives cuticular wax plasticity in P. trichocarpa under drought, identifying putative molecular targets for improving stress resilience in trees. This study expands our understanding of the adaptive mechanisms of the cuticle and their potential for enhancing drought tolerance in poplar species.
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