| Message | Plants are sessile and unable to avoid environmental stresses, such as drought, high temperature, and high salinity, which often limit plant productivity. The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) is essential for coping with environmental changes and plays crucial roles in many physiological processes, such as seed dormancy and stomatal closure. Based on the crystal structure of ABA receptors (PYLs), we have developed PYL agonists and antagonists, which activate or inhibit ABA responses, respectively, not only in the model plant (Arabidopsis) but also in crops. These compounds would be powerful tools in circumventing genetic redundancy and are particularly needed for ABA-signaling studies in plant systems lacking genetic resources. Although ABA is found universally in land plants, the signal transduction of ABA in plant species other than Arabidopsis is not well understood. Therefore, now we are addressing ourselves to elucidate the ABA signaling in rice by chemical biology and chemical genetics methods using the agonist and antagonist as chemical tools. Also, such agonists/antagonists are of potential agrichemical value because the ability to control seed germination rates, and water use is important for effective and stable agricultural production.
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