Trimethylamine oxide is a new plant signaling molecule that mediates abiotic stress tolerance

We report the identification of RCI5, an Arabidopsis cold inducible gene encoding a FMO. RCI5 seems to participate in the biosynthesis of TMAO, a new plant methabolite. We also demonstrate that TMAO positevely controls Arabidopsis tolerance to low temperature, high salt in the soil and drough stress, by promoting a wide transcriptomic reprograming of stress-relate genes. Finally, we found that diferent crops also contain TMAO in their tissues, and that exogenous applications of TMAO also increases tomato tolerance to abiotic stress. Transcriptomic profiling through RNAseq of Col-0 and FMO5-OE T1 plants under control conditions.