“…A number of studies reveal that the ERF subfamily members in various plant species, acting as either transcriptional activators or repressors, play a pivotal role in regulation of a range of physiological and biological processes, including internode elongation , root growth (Jung et al, 2017), trichome formation (Sun et al, 2017), fruit ripening (Yin et al, 2016), hormone signal transduction (Rashotte et al, 2006), secondary metabolism and biotic stress response (Zeng et al, 2015;Zhu et al, 2014). Accumulating evidence demonstrate that ERFs are also implicated in response to abiotic stresses, including submergence or hypoxia (Xu et al, 2006), heavy metal (Lin et al, 2017), drought (Jung et al, 2017) and high salinity (Yao et al, 2016). ERFs have been also demonstrated to be responsive to cold stress.…”