Chinese scientists find genes that improve drought resistance in rice

? Xinhua Agency, Kunming, February 25 (Reporter Yue Ranran) Chinese scientists found that high expression of Arabidopsis WRKY57 gene in rice can significantly improve rice tolerance to drought and high salt stress. The research results have been published recently in the international journal Frontiers in Plant Science.

Drought is one of the important environmental factors limiting crop yield and quality, but the underlying molecular mechanisms of drought tolerance in plants are still unclear internationally.

According to Jiang Yanjuan, the first author of the paper and associate researcher of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of Chinese Academy of Sciences, WRKY gene family is a typical gene family encoding transcription regulatory factors, with 74 and 102 members in Arabidopsis thaliana and rice, respectively. A lot of studies have proved that WRKY gene family members play an important role in plant response to drought stress and the establishment of signal transduction pathway.

In recent years, the research team led by researcher Yu Diqiu of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of Chinese Academy of Sciences has been devoted to the research of rice drought resistance. In previous studies, scientists found that activation of WRKY57 gene expression in Arabidopsis significantly improved Arabidopsis tolerance to drought and high salinity. This gives scientists a hint as to whether genetically modified crops can be used to improve drought resistance. Therefore, scientists in further in-depth research, Arabidopsis WRKY57 gene high expression in rice, and then simulated drought and high salt stress treatment, found that transgenic rice in the soil relative water content of only 22% of the drought environment (rice growth requires soil water content of more than 90%), or in 175 millimoles of sodium chloride environment survival rate can reach 100%.

Jiang Yanjuan said: "The experimental results prove that high expression of Arabidopsis WRKY57 gene in rice can significantly improve the tolerance of rice to drought, high salt and polyethylene glycol. On the one hand, it enhances the ability of rice to scavenge excessive reactive oxygen species, on the other hand, it promotes the expression of stress-related genes, and jointly improves the drought resistance of rice."

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the "Light of the West" Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the "Innovative Research Team" of Yunnan Province. (End)