Dr. Yong-Qiang Gao started the [Plant Electrical Signalling Lab] in November 2023 at the State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University. 

Our lab is intrigued by the diversity of plant electrical signals and is dedicated to uncovering the mechanisms of abiotic/biotic stress signalling through electrical signals.

Plants naturally encounter changing environments with various temporal or consistent stimuli that may threaten their development and growth. Moreover, these stimuli can be lethal for vulnerable species. To survive in abominable surroundings, plants must first "feel" the stress, a process that may achieved by transmembrane or cytosolic sensors, then these sensors transduce stress signals to downstream targets for adaptative responses (e.g., post-translational modifications, transcriptional regulations).  We are fascinated by the stimulus perception and subsequent acclimatization signalling of plants. Electrical signals are one of the many stimuli-responsive signals vital for plants' survival under stress.

PLANT RESPONSES TO WOUNDING/HERBIVORY (from 2018 to 2023)

When chewing herbivores feed on plants, they inevitably cause tissue damage which in turn initiates wound-induced depolarization, one type of electrical signal known as slow wave potential (SWP) or variation potential, which can propagate for a long distance. SWPs reaching the undisturbed distal tissues/leaves could initiate the synthesis of jasmonate (JA/JA-Ile) from its precursor 12-oxo-phytodienoic acid (OPDA) and increase defense. How the SWPs are initiated remains an open question since the first report of plant electrical signals in 1873 by Burdon-Sanderson.

We found that myrosinases (β-thioglucoside glucohydrolases, TGGs), which degrade glucosinolates (GSLs) to produce toxins that deter herbivory, mediating the long-distance electrical signaling in Arabidopsis thaliana. Upon tissue damage, AtTGGs were released from the vacuole of myrosin cells in the vasculature and then were sucked into the xylem vessels for long-distance transport (Gao et al., 2023, Cell). In distal tissues/leaves, the propagating AtTGGs hydrolyze aliphatic GSLs to produce aglucone/aglycone intermediates. These unstable intermediates then initiate SWPs and cytosolic Ca²⁺ signals in plant tissues/leaves remote to the damage through glutamate receptor-like channels (GLRs), finally activate the jasmonate pathway and herbivore defense (Gao et al., 2023, Cell). 

Plant-derived chemicals like chloride, glutathiones, and glutamate are also potent elicitors of tissue depolarization when fed into the xylem vessels at proper concentrations (Gao et al., 2024, Plant Physiology). Transpiration tension is known to drive bulk flow of multiple organic or inorganic compounds in xylem vessels. Alternatively, osmoelectric siphon model was proposed as a mechanism of long-distance propagation of electrical signal elicitors in the vasculature (Gao and Farmer, 2022, Journal of Experimental Botany).

^{PLANT RESPONSES TO DROUGHT (from 2011 to 2017)}

Drought is an abiotic stress that severely retards plant development/growth and limits crop production worldwide. Stomatal pores, formed by a pair of guard cells, are the main water and gas exchange passes in leaves. The opening/closing control of stomatal pores determines water use efficiency and yield of plants/crops experiencing water deficiency. 

Focusing on the dumbbell-shaped guard cells of C4 plant Zea Mays, we explored the key characteristics and activity regulation of their plasma membrane potassium channels (Gao et al., 2019, Plant and Cell Physiology), identified the main inward-rectifying K⁺ channels KZM1, KZM2, KZM3 (Gao et al., 2017, The Plant Journal), and the anion channel ZmSLAC1 which is one of the key components for stomatal closure in maize (Li and Gao et al., 2022, Plant Biotechnology Journal). During the stomatal opening, KZMs subunits form heteromeric inward K⁺ channels for K⁺ influx into the cytosol (Gao et al., 2017, The Plant Journal). And in the process of stomatal closure, calcium-dependent protein kinases, ZmCPK35 and ZmCPK37, activate ZmSLAC1 for the efflux of cytosolic NO₃^- and Cl^-. By overexpressing either of these two ZmCPKs, we were able to optimize the stomata movement to achieve higher water use efficiency and reduce yield loss of maize plants under drought stress (Li and Gao et al., 2022, Plant Biotechnology Journal).