Abstract
HIGHLIGHTS Overexpressing and RNA interfering OsDRAP1 transgenic rice plants exhibited significantly improved and reduced drought tolerance, but accompanied with negative effects on development and yield.The dehydration responsive element binding (DREBs) genes are important transcription factors which play a crucial role in plant abiotic stress tolerances. In this study, we functionally characterized a DREB2-like gene, OsDRAP1 conferring drought tolerance (DT) in rice. OsDRAP1, containing many cis-elements in its promoter region, was expressed in all organs (mainly expressed in vascular tissues) of rice, and induced by a variety of environmental stresses and plant hormones. Overexpressing OsDRAP1 transgenic plants exhibited significantly improved DT; while OsDRAP1 RNA interfering plants exhibited significantly reduced DT which also accompanied with significant negative effects on development and yield. Overexpression of OsDRAP1 has a positive impact on maintaining water balance, redox homeostasis and vascular development in transgenic rice plants under drought stress. OsDRAP1 interacted with many genes/proteins and could activate many downstream DT related genes, including important transcription factors such as OsCBSX3 to response drought stress, indicating the OsDRAP1-mediated pathways for DT involve complex genes networks. All these results provide a basis for further complete understanding of the OsDRAP1 mediated gene networks and their related phenotypic effects.
Highlights
Of these drought up-regulated genes in DK151, we identified a new rice DREB2-like transcription factor (TF) gene, OsDRAP1 (Drought Responsive AP2/EREBP gene) located in an introgressed segment on chromosome 8 of DK151 and whose expression was greatly upregulated in DK151 by drought, suggesting its potential role in rice drought tolerance (DT)
In our previous transcriptomic analyses (Wang D. et al, 2011), we identified a set of AP2/EREBP TF genes that were greatly upregulated in leaves and panicles in drought tolerant pyramiding line DK151 under drought stress
The phylogenetic analysis indicated that OsDRAP1 was closely related to members of the DREB2 subfamily in rice and wheat (Figure S1; Sharoni et al, 2011)
Summary
L) is the staple food for half of the world’s population. Rice production normally requires large amounts of water. Water availability and drought are becoming major constraints for rice cultivation because of greatly fluctuated and generally reduced rainfall in the majority of rice growing areas worldwide resulting from the global climate change. Rice production was dramatically affected by severe drought occurred every year in rainfed rice-growing areas worldwide (Pandey, 2009; Lenka et al, 2011). It is imperative to develop drought tolerant high-yielding rice varieties
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