Supplementary Legends

SUPPLEMENTARY LEGENDS

Figure S1. PYLs in maize. a. Phylogenetic tree of PYLs in maize, rice and Arabidopsis. The scale bar represents 0.1 amino acid substitutions per site. b. Alignment of the conserved domains for ABA-binding pocket of PYLs. In Arabidopsis, AtPYL13 differs from other AtPYLs at the critical residues Q38 and F71 (indicated in red) in the conserved loops CL1 and CL2 (indicated by blue rectangular boxes), respectively. In maize, all the thirteen ZmPYL members do not have these mutations, except for ZmPLY13 differs from the others at conserved loops CL2, CL3 and CL4. The black, dark gray, light gray, and white backgrounds represent similarity of 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%, respectively.

Figure S2. Phylogenetic tree among the clade A members of the PP2C subfamily in maize and Arabidopsis. The scale bar represents 0.1 amino acid substitutions per site.

Figure S3. Alignment of the C-terminal region in SnRK2s in maize and Arabidopsis. According to the alignment of the domain II in the C-terminal region, ZmSnRK2.1/2/3/8/10 were classified into SnRK2a (indicated in blue background) together with AtSnRK2.2/3/6/7/8, and ZmSnRK2.4/5/6/7/11 were divided into SnRK2b (indicated in red bacground) together with AtSnRK2.1/4/5/9/10. The black, dark gray, light gray, and white backgrounds represent similarity of 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%, respectively.

Figure S4.Growth of yeast cells transformed with ZmPYL and PP2C plasmids on the control medium. The colony growth of the yeast strain Y2HGold co-transformed with these indicated plasmid combinations on M9 minimal medium lacking leucine and tryptophan (Double dropout, DDO).

Figure S5. Growth of yeast cells transformed with ZmSnRK2 andPP2Cplasmids on the control medium. The colony growth of the yeast strain Y2HGold co-transformed with these indicated plasmid combinations on M9 minimal medium lacking leucine and tryptophan (Double dropout, DDO).

Table S1.Relative expression level of ZmPYLs, ZmPP2Cs, and ZmSnRK2s in leaf and root of maize seedlings with 100 μM (±) ABA treatment.

Table S2. Phosphotides detected before and after ABA treatment.

Table S3.Specific primers to amplify ZmPYLs, ZmPP2Cs, and ZmSnRK2sfor qRT-PCR (Table S3-1), subcellular localization (Table S3-2), Y2H (Table S3-3), BiFC (Table S3-4), and Protoplast experiment (Table S3-5).