Abstract
In a world where climate change is real and its consequences are unprecedented, understanding of the plant adaptive capacity and native stress-responsive machinery is crucial. In recent years, universal stress proteins (USPs) have received much attention in the field of plant science due to their stress-specific transcriptional regulation. This study focuses on the extensive characterization of the USP gene family members in the monocot crop rice (Oryza sativa L. var. japonica). Here, we report a total of 44 USP genes in the rice genome. In silico characterization of these genes showed that domain architecture played a major role in the functional diversification of the USP gene family which holds for all plant USPs. On top of that, a higher conservation of OsUSP members has been exhibited with a monocot genome (Zea mays L.) as compared to a dicot genome (Arabidopsis thaliana L.). Expression profiling of the identified genes led to the discovery of multiple OsUSP genes that showed pronounced transcript alteration under various abiotic stress conditions, indicating their potential role as multi-functional stress-specific modules. Furthermore, expression validation of OsUSP genes using qRT-PCR provided a strong evidence for the utility OsUSP genes in building multi-stress tolerant plants. Altogether, this study provides leads to suitable USP candidates that could be targeted for plant breeding and genetic engineering experiments to develop stress resilient crop species.
Highlights
Alteration of the growth environment from optimum to adverse conditions is a common occurrence in a plant’s life cycle
Universal stress proteins have been shown to be induced under various abiotic stresses
A diverse number of universal stress proteins (USPs) gene family have been identified from different plant species including, Arabidopsis (Bhuria et al, 2019), Brassica napus, Triticum aestivum, Brassica rapa, Solanum lycopersicum, Solanum tuberosum, Oryza sativa japonica, Vitis vinifera, Zea mays (Chi et al, 2019), Malus sieversii (Ledeb.) (Yang et al, 2019), Barley
Summary
Alteration of the growth environment from optimum to adverse conditions is a common occurrence in a plant’s life cycle. Plants must exhibit a dynamic response to cope with subtle to drastic changes in their nearby regimes Such changes can range from diverse ecological parameters such as temperature, water and nutrient availability, salt content, etc. In a world where climate change is experiencing a rapid spike, plants native stress-responsive machinery is not able to protect the cellular system from stress inflicted damages (Lesk et al, 2016) These circumstances have accelerated the search for stress-induced genetic components that hold the capacity to endow plants with enhanced stress resilience through modern biotechnological tools. In this regard, the most suitable candidates include those genes that can mediate protection against multiple stressors simultaneously. One such group of proteins that have recently come into the spotlight for their stress-specific roles in plants, are the universal stress protein (USP) family (Chi et al, 2019)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
