Previous Article |
Table of Contents
| Next Article 
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES
Overexpressing a NAM, ATAF, and CUC (NAC) transcription factor enhances drought resistance and salt tolerance in rice
*National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, National Center of Plant Gene Research (Wuhan) and College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Communicated by Deborah P. Delmer, The Rockefeller Foundation, New York, NY, June 11, 2006 (received for review April 7, 2006)
Drought and salinity are major abiotic stresses to crop production. Here, we show that overexpression of stress responsive gene SNAC1 (STRESS-RESPONSIVE NAC 1) significantly enhances drought resistance in transgenic rice (22–34% higher seed setting than control) in the field under severe drought stress conditions at the reproductive stage while showing no phenotypic changes or yield penalty. The transgenic rice also shows significantly improved drought resistance and salt tolerance at the vegetative stage. Compared with WT, the transgenic rice are more sensitive to abscisic acid and lose water more slowly by closing more stomatal pores, yet display no significant difference in the rate of photosynthesis. SNAC1 is induced predominantly in guard cells by drought and encodes a NAM, ATAF, and CUC (NAC) transcription factor with transactivation activity. DNA chip analysis revealed that a large number of stress-related genes were up-regulated in the SNAC1-overexpressing rice plants. Our data suggest that SNAC1 holds promising utility in improving drought and salinity tolerance in rice.
Oryza sativa | abscisic acid | stomata | dehydration
Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.
Data deposition: The sequence of SNAC1 cDNA reported in this paper has been deposited in the GenBank database (accession no. DQ394702).
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lizhongx{at}mail.hzau.edu.cn
© 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles in HighWire Press-hosted journals:
|
|
 |
|
  K. Century, T. L. Reuber, and O. J. Ratcliffe Regulating the Regulators: The Future Prospects for Transcription-Factor-Based Agricultural Biotechnology Products Plant Physiology, May 1, 2008; 147(1): 20 - 29. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 D. Qiu, J. Xiao, W. Xie, H. Liu, X. Li, L. Xiong, and S. Wang Rice Gene Network Inferred from Expression Profiling of Plants Overexpressing OsWRKY13, a Positive Regulator of Disease Resistance Mol Plant, April 15, 2008; (2008) ssn012v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 Q. Zhang Inaugural Article: Strategies for developing Green Super Rice PNAS, October 16, 2007; 104(42): 16402 - 16409. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
S. Vanderauwera, M. De Block, N. Van de Steene, B. van de Cotte, M. Metzlaff, and F. Van Breusegem Silencing of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase in plants alters abiotic stress signal transduction PNAS, September 18, 2007; 104(38): 15150 - 15155. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
X. Dai, Y. Xu, Q. Ma, W. Xu, T. Wang, Y. Xue, and K. Chong Overexpression of an R1R2R3 MYB Gene, OsMYB3R-2, Increases Tolerance to Freezing, Drought, and Salt Stress in Transgenic Arabidopsis Plant Physiology, April 1, 2007; 143(4): 1739 - 1751. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. J. Baxter, H. Redestig, N. Schauer, D. Repsilber, K. R. Patil, J. Nielsen, J. Selbig, J. Liu, A. R. Fernie, and L. J. Sweetlove The Metabolic Response of Heterotrophic Arabidopsis Cells to Oxidative Stress Plant Physiology, January 1, 2007; 143(1): 312 - 325. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
