New insights into the role of Arabidopsis RABA1 GTPases in salinity stress tolerance.

RAB11 GTPases, widely conserved members of RAB small GTPases, have evolved in a unique way in plants; plant RAB11 has notable diversity compared with animals and yeast. Recently, we have shown that members of RABA1, a subgroup in Arabidopsis RAB11 group, are required for salinity stress tolerance. To obtain a clue to understand its underlying mechanism, here we investigate whether RABA1 regulates sodium transport across the plasma membrane and accumulation in the vacuole. The results indicate that the raba1 quadruple mutant is not defective in the import and intracellular distribution of sodium, implying that RABA1 members are involved in a more indirect way in the responses to salinity stress.