Over-expression of OsHsfA7 enhanced salt and drought tolerance in transgenic rice

Abstract

Heat shock proteins play an important role in plant stresstolerance and are mainly regulated by heat shock transcriptionfactors (Hsfs). In this study, we generated transgenic riceover-expressing OsHsfA7 and carried out morphologicalobservation and stress tolerance assays. Transgenic plantsexhibited less, shorter lateral roots and root hair. Under salttreatment, over-expressing OsHsfA7 rice showed alleviativeappearance of damage symptoms and higher survival rate, leafelectrical conductivity and malondialdehyde content of transgenicplants were lower than those of wild type plants. Meanwhile,transgenic rice seedlings restored normal growth but wild typeplants could not be rescued after drought and re-wateringtreatment. These findings indicate that over-expression ofOsHsfA7 gene can increase tolerance to salt and drought stressesin rice seedlings. [BMB Reports 2013; 46(1): 31-36]

Keywords

• Drought tolerance
• OsHsfA7
• Rice
• Root morphology
• Salt tolerance