Abstract
Intracellular levels of Mg2+ are tightly regulated, as
Mg2+ deficiency or excess affects normal plant growth
and development. In Arabidopsis, we determined that phospholipase Dα1
(PLDα1) is involved in the stress response to high-magnesium conditions.
The T-DNA insertion mutant pldα1 is hypersensitive to increased
concentrations of magnesium, exhibiting reduced primary root length and
fresh weight. PLDα1 activity increases rapidly after
high-Mg2+ treatment, and this increase was found to be
dose-dependent. Two lines harboring mutations in the HKD motif, which is
essential for PLDα1 activity, displayed the same
high-Mg2+ hypersensitivity of pldα1 plants. Moreover,
we show that high concentrations of Mg2+ disrupt
K+ homeostasis, and that transcription of
K+ homeostasis-related genes CIPK9 and HAK5 is
impaired in pldα1. Additionally, we found that the akt1, hak5 double
mutant is hypersensitive to high-Mg2+. We conclude
that in Arabidopsis, the enzyme activity of PLDα1 is vital in the
response to high-Mg2+ conditions, and that PLDα1
mediates this response partially through regulation of
K+ homeostasis.