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Growing drought-tolerant crops inching forward

A collaborative team of scientists led by researchers at The Medical College of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, has used the tools of structural biology to understand how a synthetic chemical mimics abscisic acid (ABA), a key stress hormone that helps plants cope with adverse environmental conditions such as drought. The results are published online in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology in advance of print publication later.For years scientists have searched for practical ways to use ABA signaling to improve drought tolerance in agriculture. Unfortunately, the synthetic form of ABA used commercially is light sensitive and expensive. The new study builds on the earlier discovery by scientists at University of California, Riverside of pyrabactin, a synthetic chemical that mimics ABA. However, unlike ABA, pyrabactin activates only a few of the 14 ABA receptors in the plant needed for effective drought tolerance."By better understanding how pyrabactin works, we can develop new chemicals to enable plants to r

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