Improved drought and salt tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis overexpressing a NAC transcriptional factor from
Xu Liu1, Lan Hong, Xiao-Yun Li
1College of Life Sciences, Guangdong Key Lab of Biotechnology for Plant Development, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, PR China.
Abstract:
The NAC (NAM, ATAF, and CUC) proteins share a highly conserved NAC domain and constitute a large family of plant-specific transcriptional factors. We have isolated a drought-induced NAC gene from Arachis hypogaea, named AhNAC2 (Arachis hypogaea NAC2) but its specific role remains unknown. In this study, we found that transgenic Arabidopsis overexpressing AhNAC2 lines were hypersensitive to ABA in root growth, seed germination, and stomatal closure compared to wild type Arabidopsis. The transgenic lines exhibited enhanced tolerance to drought and salinity stress, and the expression levels of 12 stress-related genes in the AhNAC2 transformed plants were higher than in wild type Arabidopsis. These results indicate that AhNAC2 is a major player in the NAC gene family involved in ABA signaling. Its role as a candidate gene for engineering drought and salt tolerance in cultivated plants is discussed.
Related Concept Videos
Responses to Salt Stress
Adaptations that Reduce Water Loss
Responses to Drought and Flooding
Transcription
Transcription is the process of synthesizing RNA from a DNA sequence by RNA polymerase. It is the first step in producing a protein from a gene sequence. Additionally, many other proteins and regulatory sequences are involved in the proper synthesis of messenger RNA (mRNA). Regulation of transcription is responsible for the differentiation of all the different types of cells and often for the proper cellular response to environmental signals.
Transcription Can Produce Different Kinds...
Transgenic Plants
The first-ever transgenic plant was a tobacco plant developed in 1983 that showed resistance against the tobacco mosaic virus. Since then, many transgenic plants have been developed and commercialized for improving the agricultural, ornamental, and horticultural value of a crop plant. Transgenic...
Plant Breeding and Biotechnology

