Enhancing salt and drought tolerance in marker-free transgenic durum wheat through TdGASA19 overexpression

The GASA gene family (Gibberellic Acid-Stimulated Arabidopsis) comprises plant-specific genes that play crucial roles in plant development and defense mechanisms against a plethora of abiotic and biotic stressors. As revealed in our previous study, TdGASA19 transcripts from durum wheat are induced by a range of stressors and its heterologous expression improved stress tolerance in yeast cells. Here we have focused on TdGASA19 role in its host species, Triticum turgidum var. durum. We examined the expression profile of the TdGASA19 gene and found out that it is upregulated in response to environmental stimuli and phytohormones, such as SA and IAA, indicating that the TdGASA19 gene may control stress and hormone signaling pathways in durum wheat. We subsequently engineered marker-free transgenic durum wheat lines overexpressing the TdGASA19 gene, which exhibited improved tolerance to drought and salt stress and yielded more than non-transgenic plants (NT). TdGASA19 regulated both scavenging capacity of the antioxidant enzyme system and the activation of five stress-related genes that act as positive regulators of salt or drought stress tolerance. In light of our results, TdGASA19 emerges as a promising novel gene with potential for further functional analysis and exploitation in molecular breeding to enhance environmental stress tolerance in grain crops.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-025-01608-z.