Abscisic acid (ABA) regulates many aspects of plant growth and development, but the chain of events between recognition and cellular response remains obscure. Dr. Finkelstein's overall objective is to identify proteins involved in ABA action and study their function by physiological, biochemical and molecular genetic analysis. She is using mutants of Arabidopsis with altered sensitivity to ABA to identify genes involved in ABA response. Dr. Finkelstein has also isolated Arabidopsis genomic clones with homology to the maize ABA-insensitive locus, vp1. She proposes to analyze their function by: 1) determining whether they correspond to any of the ABI loci; 2) characterizing the developmental specificity of their expression in both wild type and abi plants; 3) DNA sequence analysis and 4) immunolocalization. If neither sequence cosegregates with any abi locus, she will attempt to create a mutant phenotype using antisense genes. %%% THe plant growth regulator abscisic acid affects many aspects of a plants growth and development, including embryo development, seed dormancy, water relations, cell elongation, tolerance to a variety of environmental stresses and senescence. This study will identify some of the genes involved in abscisic acid action.
