科学家利用Plantarray系统，在知名期刊New Phytologist （影响因子10.3）上发表了题为“Tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca) cuticular wax composition is essential for leaf retention during drought, facilitating a speedy recovery following rewatering”的文章。

The Plantarray system at the iCORE facility, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 

光烟草（Nicotiana glauca）表皮蜡成分对干旱期间的叶片保持至关重要，有助于重新浇水后的快速恢复

尽管进行了数十年的广泛研究，但表皮脂质在维持植物健康中的作用仍远未被理解。我们利用基因组编辑的光烟草（Nicotiana glauca）研究了不同种类的表皮蜡在非生物胁迫（如表皮失水、干旱和光照反应）中的意义。

我们生成了系列不同蜡成分的突变体。四个蜡突变体和一个角质突变体被广泛用于研究它们对非生物胁迫的反应变化。 

尽管突变导致角质层水分损失增加，但蜡突变体在非胁迫条件下没有表现出蒸腾作用增加或生长减缓。然而，在干旱条件下，缺乏烷烃的植物无法减少其蒸腾作用，导致叶片死亡、恢复受损和茎开裂。相比之下，脂肪醇缺乏的植物表现出较高的耐旱性，这是本研究中检测的参数中，植物表型并不以光泽/白霜外观进行分组。

我们得出结论，尽管烷烃对整个光烟草的影响很小，在正常、非胁迫条件下，蒸腾作用和生物量增加在干旱反应过程中是必不可少的，因为它们使植物在气孔关闭时封闭角质层，从而减少叶片死亡，促进快速恢复。 

Tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca) cuticular wax composition is essential for leaf retention during drought, facilitating a speedy recovery following rewatering 

Summary

Despite decades of extensive study, the role of cuticular lipids in sustaining plant fitness is far from being understood. We utilized genome-edited tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca) to investigate the significance of different classes of epicuticular wax in abiotic stress such as cuticular water loss, drought, and light response. 

We generated mutants displaying a range of wax compositions. Four wax mutants and one cutin mutant were extensively investigated for alterations in their response to abiotic factors. 

Although the mutations led to elevated cuticular water loss, the wax mutants did not display elevated transpiration or reduced growth under nonstressed conditions. However, under drought, plants lacking alkanes were unable to reduce their transpiration, leading to leaf death, impaired recovery, and stem cracking. By contrast, plants deficient in fatty alcohols exhibited elevated drought tolerance, which was part of a larger trend of plant phenotypes not clustering by a glossy/glaucous appearance in the parameters examined in this study. 

We conclude that although alkanes have little effect on whole N. glauca transpiration and biomass gain under normal, nonstressed conditions, they are essential during drought responses, since they enable plants to seal their cuticle upon stomatal closure, thereby reducing leaf death and facilitating a speedy recovery.