Stress-induced expression in wheat of the Arabidopsis thaliana DREB1A gene delays water stress symptoms under greenhouse conditions

Abstract

One of the major environmental factors limiting plant productivity is lack of water. This is especially true for the major cereals maize, rice, and wheat, which demonstrate a range of susceptibility to moisture deficit. Although conventional breeding and marker-assisted selection are being used to develop varieties more tolerant to water stress, these methods are time and resource consuming and germplasm dependent. Genetic engineering is attractive because of its potential to improve abiotic stress tolerance more rapidly. Transcription factors have been shown to produce multiple phenotypic alterations, many of which are involved in stress responses. DREB1A, a transcription factor that recognizes dehydration response elements, has been shown in Arabidopsis thaliana to play a crucial role in promoting the expression of drought-tolerance genes. In our efforts to enhance drought tolerance in wheat, the A. thaliana DREB1A gene was placed under control of a stress-inducible promoter from the rd29A gene and transferred via biolistic transformation into bread wheat. Plants expressing the DREB1A gene demonstrated substantial resistance to water stress in comparison with checks under experimental greenhouse conditions, manifested by a 10-day delay in wilting when water was withheld.

Molecular, anatomical and physiological properties of a genetically modified soybean line transformed with rd29A:AtDREB1A for the improvement of drought tolerance

“…Both groups possess a conserved DNAbinding domain also found in ethylene-responsive element binding factor (ERF) and AP2 proteins, which was first identified in APETALA2 (Okamuro et al, 1997;Shinozaki and Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, 2000). DREB1A overexpression delays death following withdrawal of irrigation in transgenic wheat (Pellegrineschi et al, 2004), whereas improvements in tolerance to drought, salinity and low-temperature stresses have been reported in Arabidopsis (Kasuga et al, 1999), potato (Behnam et al, 2007, tobacco (Kasuga et al, 2004, rice (Oh et al, 2005) and wheat (Pellegrineschi et al, 2002).…”

The Association Among Gene Expression Responses to Nine Abiotic Stress Treatments in Arabidopsis thaliana

“…T HE genetic effects of environmental stress have been extensively studied from the standpoint of cellular physiology (Singh et al 2002;Mahalingam et al 2003;Chen and Zhu 2004), evolutionary biology Parsons 1991, 1997), and increasingly, biotechnology (Holmberg and Bü low 1998;Kasuga et al 1999;Wang et al 2003;Pellegrineschi et al 2004;Denby and Gehring 2005;Vinocur and Altman 2005). In plant species, environmental stress can be a large source of mortality because plants are unable to avoid environmental extremes through migration.…”

Yield stability for cereals in a changing climate

“…Overexpression of CBF/DREB1 transcription factors under control of a strong constitutive promoter improves stress tolerance, but they lead to stunted growth and there is an adverse effect on yield (Oh et al 2007;Morran et al 2011). The use of an inducible promoter such as the drought-inducible rd29A promoter was shown to overcome the negative effect of DREB1A overexpression (Kasuga et al 2004;Pellegrineschi et al 2004). CBF/DREB1 transcription factors are normally expressed in the vascular parenchyma cells (Endo et al 2008) and ectopic expression of these transcription factors may also have negative effects on yield in cereals.…”