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Drought is a major constrain in crop production that reduce growth and cause yield loss of up to 70%. Transcription factor plays a major role in cellular regulation and physical changes of plants as a response to stress. A number of transcription factors, such as CBF/DREB, NAC, zinc finger protein are regulators during stress. The Oryza sativa NAC6 (OsNAC6) gene is one of the transcription factor in rice that can regulate gene expression during stress conditions. Thus, pCambia 1305 harboring OsNAC6 chimaeric gene with CaMV 35S promoter was introduced into rice zygotic embryo using Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation to regenerate transgenic rice overexpressing the transgene. As many as 39 putative transgenic lines in which 21 lines possitively harbored hpt gene have been regenerated. The positive identification of hpt in the regenerated transgenic rice indirectly indicated integration of the targeted OsNAC6 since both transgenes were part of the same T-DNA. Further analysis indicated the presence of 1-3 copies of transgene integration in the genome. The expression of OsNAC6 transgene in the transgenic rice line#C.73, C.83 and C.91 were higher than wild type non-transgenic one. Further analysis indicated those three transgenic lines carrying OsNAC6 transgene exhibited higher tolerance against drought and salinity stresses. Moreover, three known stress-associated regulatory genes (AP2, Zincfinger protein and MYB) were up-regulated in those three transgenic lines. These findings demonstrated that OsNAC6 might be a candidate of stress-responsive NAC regulatory gene that can be used to develop either drought or salt tolerant tolerant transgenic plants.

No abstract

Genome- or gene-editing (abbreviated here as ‘GEd’) presents great opportunities for crop improvement. This is especially so for the countries in the Asia-Pacific region, which is home to more than half of the world’s growing population. A brief description of the science of gene-editing is provided with examples of GEd products. For the benefits of GEd technologies to be realized, international policy and regulatory environments must be clarified, otherwise non-tariff trade barriers will result. The status of regulations that relate to GEd crop products in Asian countries and Australasia are described, together with relevant definitions and responsible regulatory bodies. The regulatory landscape is changing rapidly: in some countries, the regulations are clear, in others they are developing, and some countries have yet to develop appropriate policies. There is clearly a need for the harmonization or alignment of GEd regulations in the region: this will promote the path-to-market and enable the benefits of GEd technologies to reach the end-users.

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Yvh1, a dual-specificity protein phosphatase involved in glycogen accumulation and sporulation, is required for normal vegetative growth. To further elucidate the role of Yvh1, we generated dominant mutants suppressing the slow growth caused by YVH1 disruption. One of the mutant alleles, designated as SVH1-1 (suppressor of Δyvh1 deletion), was identical to MRT4 (mRNA turnover) that contained a single-base substitution causing an amino acid change from Gly(68) to Asp. Mrt4(G68D) restored the deficiencies in growth and rRNA biogenesis that occurs in absence of Yvh1. Here, we report that the interaction between Mrt4 and Yvh1 is also essential for normal glycogen accumulation and mRNA decay as well as the induction of sporulation genes IME2, SPO13 and HOP1. The Mrt4(G68D) could restore the plethora of phenotypes we observed in absence of Yvh1. We found that Yvh1 is not essential for wild-type induction of the transcriptional regulator of these genes, IME1, suggesting that either translation or post-translational modification to activate Ime1 has been compromised. Since a defect in ribosome biogenesis in general can be related to other various defects, the ribosome biogenesis defect caused by absence of Yvh1 might be an indirect cause of observed phenotypes.