The Maize WRKY Transcription Factor ZmWRKY40 Confers Drought Resistance in Transgenic .

Int J Mol Sci

Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS)/National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Improvement of Triticeae Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing 100081, China.

Published: August 2018

Abiotic stresses restrict the growth and yield of crops. Plants have developed a number of regulatory mechanisms to respond to these stresses. WRKY transcription factors (TFs) are plant-specific transcription factors that play essential roles in multiple plant processes, including abiotic stress response. At present, little information regarding drought-related WRKY genes in maize is available. In this study, we identified a WRKY transcription factor gene from maize, named . ZmWRKY40 is a member of WRKY group II, localized in the nucleus of mesophyll protoplasts. Several stress-related transcriptional regulatory elements existed in the promoter region of . was induced by drought, high salinity, high temperature, and abscisic acid (ABA). could rapidly respond to drought with peak levels (more than 10-fold) at 1 h after treatment. Overexpression of improved drought tolerance in transgenic by regulating stress-related genes, and the reactive oxygen species (ROS) content in transgenic lines was reduced by enhancing the activities of peroxide dismutase (POD) and catalase (CAT) under drought stress. According to the results, the present study may provide a candidate gene involved in the drought stress response and a theoretical basis to understand the mechanisms of in response to abiotic stresses in maize.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6164628PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms19092580DOI Listing

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