Abstract
Drought is one of the most important environmental constraints affecting plant growth and development and ultimately leads to yield loss. Uridine diphosphate (UDP)-dependent glycosyltransferases (UGTs) are believed to play key roles in coping with environmental stresses. In rice, it is estimated that there are more than 200 UGT genes. However, most of them have not been identified as their physiological significance. In this study, we reported the characterization of a putative glycosyltransferase gene UGT85E1 in rice. UGT85E1 gene is significantly upregulated by drought stress and abscisic acid (ABA) treatment. The overexpression of UGT85E1 led to an enhanced tolerance in transgenic rice plants to drought stress, while the ugt85e1 mutants of rice showed a more sensitive phenotype to drought stress. Further studies indicated that UGT85E1 overexpression induced ABA accumulation, stomatal closure, enhanced reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging capacity, increased proline and sugar contents, and upregulated expression of stress-related genes under drought stress conditions. Moreover, when UGT85E1 was ectopically overexpressed in Arabidopsis, the transgenic plants showed increased tolerance to drought as well as in rice. Our findings suggest that UGT85E1 plays an important role in mediating plant response to drought and oxidative stresses. This work may provide a promising candidate gene for cultivating drought-tolerant crops both in dicots and monocots.
Highlights
Drought is one of the most important environmental cues that affect crop production
We examined the responsiveness of UGT85E1 to mannitol and exogenous Abscisic acid (ABA) via real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR
The induction of UGT85E1 was observed from 6 to 48 h under 100 μM ABA treatment (Figure 1A). These two treatments significantly induced the expression of UGT85E1, suggesting that this gene may be involved in drought stress
Summary
Drought is one of the most important environmental cues that affect crop production. It is reported that drought stress will lead to a 50% yield reduction in the reproductive stage of the crops (Hu and Xiong, 2014; Lesk et al, 2016). Improving the drought tolerance of crops is an urgent need when humans face more and more serious water shortages. Abscisic acid (ABA) has long been considered the most important plant hormone involved in drought stress responses (Schachtman and Goodger, 2008). When plant roots sense a lack of soil water, they produce large amounts of ABA. The increase of ABA in plant cells activates intracellular signal conversion and protein phosphorylation and regulates the specific binding process of transcription factors such as ABF (ABRE-binding factor) and AREB (ABA-responsive element binding protein), inducing the expression of downstream stress
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
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