Improves Salt and Drought Tolerance in Transgenic Soybean Plants.

NF-YA transcription factors function in modulating tolerance to abiotic stresses that are serious threats to crop yields. In this study, , an NF-YA gene in soybean, was strongly induced by salt, drought, ABA, and HO, and suppressed by tungstate, an ABA synthesis inhibitor. The transcripts were detected in different tissues in seedling and flowering stages, and the expression levels in roots were highest. GmNFYA13 is a nuclear localization protein with self-activating activity. Transgenic plants overexpressing with higher transcript levels of stress-related genes showed ABA hypersensitivity and enhanced tolerance to salt and drought stresses compared with WT plants. Moreover, overexpression of GmNFYA13 resulted in higher salt and drought tolerance in OE soybean plants, while suppressing it produced the opposite results. In addition, GmNFYA13 could bind to the promoters of , , , and to regulate their expression abundance . The data in this study suggested that enhanced salt and drought tolerance in soybean plants.