Arabidopsis glutamate receptor <i>GLR3.7</i> is involved in abscisic acid response

The ionotropic glutamate receptor (iGluR) plays an important role in neuronal signaling in animal cells. There are at least 20 glutamate receptor-like (GLR) genes in <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i>. These genes are involved in seed germination, root growth, wounding response, stomata closure, <i>etc</i>. A recent study showed that Arabidopsis clade III glutamate receptor <i>GLR3.7</i> is involved in salt stress response. We tested whether <i>GLR3.7</i> is involved in abscisic acid (ABA) response. In the present study, we found that the expression of <i>GLR3.7</i> was reduced by ABA treatment. Under ABA-treated condition, <i>GLR3.7</i> overexpression lines exhibited significantly higher seed germination rate at 60, 72 and 84 h under ABA-treated condition. A point mutation in 14-3-3 binding site of GLR3.7 in GLR3.7-S860A overexpression lines exhibited higher seed germination inhibition under ABA-treated conditions. Our results support that <i>GLR3.7</i> is involved in ABA response in Arabidopsis. In addition, Ser-860 of GLR3.7 appears to be important in ABA response.