Expression of MaMAPK gene in seedlings of Malus L. under water stress.

Seedlings of three species of Malus were used to study the expression of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) in response to water stress: Malus hupehensis, a drought-sensitive species; Malus sieversii, a drought-tolerant species; and Malus micromalus, a middle type. Results showed that Malus MAPK (MaMAPK, GenBank accession No. AF435805) was expressed in both roots and leaves of seedlings of the three Malus species treated with 20% polyethylene glycol for different time periods. Expression levels peaked at 1.5 h after treatment with polyethylene glycol, then decreased to their lowest levels. Liquid kinase assays indicated that the dynamic changes of MAPK activity were very similar to those of the relative expression of MaMAPK mRNA. However, the peak of the former occurred slightly behind the latter. It was noticed that, although the kinase activity decreased after the peak, it was still higher than that of the control during the whole time period. These results suggested that MaMAPK was regulated not only by water stress at the transcription level, but also by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation at the protein level. In addition, of these three apple species, the highest MAPK activity and MaMAPK expression level was found in M. sieversii, followed by M. micromalus and M. hupehensis, suggesting that MAPK might be correlated with drought tolerance in these three species. The different expression levels might be one of the molecular mechanisms of the different drought tolerances in Malus.