The tomato EAR-motif repressor, SlERF36, accelerates growth transitions and reduces plant life cycle by regulating GA levels and responses.

Faster vegetative growth and early maturity/harvest reduce plant life cycle time and are important agricultural traits facilitating early crop rotation. GA is a key hormone governing developmental transitions that determine growth speed in plants. An EAR-motif repressor, SlERF36 that regulates various growth transitions, partly through regulation of the GA pathway and GA levels, was identified in tomato.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) WRKY23 enhances salt and osmotic stress tolerance by modulating the ethylene and auxin pathways in transgenic Arabidopsis.

Osmotic stress is one of the biggest problems in agriculture, which adversely affects crop productivity. Plants adopt several strategies to overcome osmotic stresses that include transcriptional reprogramming and activation of stress responses mediated by different transcription factors and phytohormones. We have identified a WRKY transcription factor from tomato, SlWRKY23, which is induced by mannitol and NaCl treatment.

Expression of the tomato WRKY gene, , alters root sensitivity to ethylene, auxin and JA and affects aerial architecture in transgenic Arabidopsis.

WRKY transcription factors (TFs) are a large plant-specific family of TFs that govern development and biotic/abiotic stress responses in plants. We have identified as a gene primarily expressed in roots. encodes a protein of 320 amino acids that functions as a transcriptional activator.