Overexpression of Rice Os<i>S1Fa1</i> Gene Confers Drought Tolerance in Arabidopsis
Sung-Il Kim,
Kyu Ho Lee,
Jun Soo Kwak,
Dae Hwan Kwon,
Jong Tae Song,
Hak Soo Seo
Affiliations
Sung-Il Kim
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Bioresources, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Kyu Ho Lee
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Bioresources, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Jun Soo Kwak
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Bioresources, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Dae Hwan Kwon
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Bioresources, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Jong Tae Song
Department of Applied Biosciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Korea
Hak Soo Seo
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Bioresources, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Small peptides and proteins play critical regulatory roles in plant development and environmental stress responses; however, only a few of these molecules have been identified and characterized to date because of their poor annotation and other experimental challenges. Here, we present that rice (Oryza sativa L.) OsS1Fa1, a small 76-amino acid protein, confers drought stress tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana. OsS1Fa1 was highly expressed in leaf, culm, and root tissues of rice seedlings during vegetative growth and was significantly induced under drought stress. OsS1Fa1 overexpression in Arabidopsis induced the expression of selected drought-responsive genes and enhanced the survival rate of transgenic lines under drought. The proteasome inhibitor MG132 protected the OsS1Fa1 protein from degradation. Together, our data indicate that the small protein OsS1Fa1 is induced by drought and is post-translationally regulated, and the ectopic expression of OsS1Fa1 protects plants from drought stress.
