AUTHOR=Jiang Yanjuan , Qiu Yuping , Hu Yanru , Yu Diqiu 

TITLE=Heterologous Expression of AtWRKY57 Confers Drought Tolerance in Oryza sativa

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=7

YEAR=2016

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2016.00145

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2016.00145

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<p>Drought stress is a severe environmental factor that greatly restricts plant distribution and crop production. Recently, we have found that overexpressing <italic>AtWRKY57</italic> enhanced drought tolerance in <italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</italic>. In this study, we further reported that the <italic>Arabidopsis</italic> WRKY57 transcription factor was able to confer drought tolerance to transgenic rice (<italic>Oryza sativa</italic>) plants. The enhanced drought tolerance of transgenic rice was resulted from the lower water loss rates, cell death, malondialdehyde contents and relative electrolyte leakage while a higher proline content and reactive oxygen species-scavenging enzyme activities was observed during stress conditions. Moreover, further investigation revealed that the expression levels of several stress-responsive genes were up-regulated in drought-tolerant transgenic rice plants, compared with those in wild-type plants. In addition to the drought tolerance, the <italic>AtWRKY57</italic> over-expressing plants also had enhanced salt and PEG stress tolerances. Taken together, our study indicates that over-expressing <italic>AtWRKY57</italic> in rice improved not only drought tolerance but also salt and PEG tolerance, demonstrating its potential role in crop improvement.</p>