Abscisic acid (ABA) plays a key role in the control of stomatal aperture by regulating ion channel activities and water exchanges across the plasma membrane of guard cells. Changes in cytoplasmic calcium content and activation of anion and outward-rectifying K ϩ channels are among the earliest cellular responses to ABA in guard cells. In Arabidopsis suspension cells, we have demonstrated that outer plasmalemma perception of ABA triggered similar early events. Furthermore, a Ca 2ϩ influx and the activation of anion channels are part of the ABA-signaling pathway leading to the specific expression of RAB18. Here, we determine whether phospholipases are involved in ABA-induced RAB18 expression. Phospholipase C is not implicated in this ABA pathway. Using a transphosphatidylation reaction, we show that ABA plasmalemma perception results in a transient stimulation of phospholipase D (PLD) activity, which is necessary for RAB18 expression. Further experiments showed that PLD activation was unlikely to be regulated by heterotrimeric G proteins. We also observed that ABA-dependent stimulation of PLD was necessary for the activation of plasma anion current. However, when ABA activation of plasma anion channels was inhibited, the ABA-dependent activation of PLD was unchanged. Thus, we conclude that in Arabidopsis suspension cells, ABA stimulation of PLD acts upstream from anion channels in the transduction pathway leading to RAB18 expression.Abscisic acid (ABA) regulates seed maturation and germination, adaptation of plants to water shortage, cold, and high salinity (Leung and Giraudat, 1998). Several ABA transduction mutants have been isolated in Arabidopsis in which diverse loci affecting ABA response have been identified (for review, see Merlot and Giraudat, 1997;Leung and Giraudat, 1998). Among the best characterized are the ABAinsensitive abi-1 and abi-2 mutations, which affect protein phosphatases (Leung et al., 1997); the abi-3 (Giraudat et al., 1992;Parcy et al., 1994), abi-4 (Finkelstein et al., 1998), and abi-5 (Finkelstein and Lynch, 2000), which are mutated in transcription processes; and the ABA-hypersensitive era1 mutant, deleted for the -subunit of a farnesyl transferase which acts as a negative regulator (Cutler et al., 1996). In guard cells, ABA transduction pathways have been extensively analyzed. Stomatal aperture is controlled by ABA through the activation of anion currents, which depolarizes the plasma membrane and promotes the activation of outward-rectifying K ϩ currents (Schroeder et al., 2001). In aleurone cells, ABA causes a decrease in cytoplasmic Ca 2ϩ content, which is necessary for the inhibition of GA promotion of ␣-amylase activity (Ritchie and Gilroy, 1998). In Arabidopsis suspension cells, similar ion channel activation has been observed (Jeannette et al., 1999; Ghelis et al., 2000a Ghelis et al., , 2000bTakahashi et al., 2001). However, the precise sequence of events triggered by ABA in these models remains unknown.Recent research has provided new data about the role of phospholipases...