Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Zhen Wang

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Zhen Wang, co-first author of Two Chloroplast Proteins Negatively Regulate Plant Drought Resistance Through Separate Pathways

Current Position: Research Associate, Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Education: Ph.D. in Genetics, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, University of Chinese Academic Sciences; M.Sc. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Science and Technology of China; B.Sc. in Biological Sciences, Dezhou University, China

Non-scientific Interests: watching movies, thinking aimlessly

Brief bio: I am interested in plant response to abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity and abnormal temperatures. I started my research in plant sciences with Prof. Cheng-Bin Xiang in 2008. During my graduate study pursuing a Master’s degree, I focused my research on the roles of SULTR3, a chloroplast-specific sulfate transporter, in abiotic stress response. I obtained my doctoral degree in 2017 with the supervision of Dr. Jian-Kang Zhu. My dissertation was to elucidate the roles of chloroplast proteins in drought response in Arabidopsis. In the current paper, we show an important role of the chloroplast protein PPD5 in drought tolerance. We proposed that PPD5 acts as a negative regulator of ROS production in guard cells through the OST1-dependent pathway. This finding provides new insights into the regulatory mechanism underlying the induction of ROS in guard cells for drought response.

Two chloroplast proteins negatively regulate plant drought resistance through separate pathways (current paper), SULTR3s function in chloroplast sulfate uptake and affect ABA biosynthesis and the stress response (DOI: 10.1104/pp.18.01439), Arabidopsis Enhanced Drought Tolerance 1/HOMEODOMAIN GLABROUS 11 confers drought tolerance in transgenic rice without yield penalty (DOI: 10.1104/pp.113.217596), and first author of Two chloroplast proteins suppress drought resistance by affecting ROS production in guard cells (DOI: 10.1104/pp.16.00889)