DREB2A Enhances Stress Tolerance Without Slowing Growth

Identification of a gene which regulates stress tolerance in plants could lead to the development of stress-resistant crops.

AsianScientist (Jan. 28, 2015) – Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan International Center for Agricultural Sciences and RIKEN have demonstrated a novel molecular mechanism that regulates gene expression in response to heat stress in plants. Their results have been published in The Plant Cell.

Plants respond to environmental stresses such as drought, high-salinity and heat by inducing the expression of numerous stress tolerance genes. The protein DREB2A is an important transcription factor that regulates expression levels of many heat stress-responsive genes that function in acquisition of stress tolerance under heat stress conditions. However, the detailed mechanism of how the DREB2A protein activates the target genes remain to be elucidated.

Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences Professor Kazuko Yamaguchi-Shinozaki and co-workers identified DPB3-1 as a novel interacting protein with DREB2A in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. They demonstrated that the DPB3-1 bound to DREB2A and was involved in transcriptional regulation of DREB2A.

Overexpression of the DPB3-1 enhanced the expression levels of many heat stress-inducible genes including the DREB2A target genes that were important to increase heat stress tolerance for plants under heat stress conditions. Moreover, the DPB3-1-overexpressing plants showed enhanced heat stress tolerance and did not show any growth retardation under non-stress conditions.

The overexpression of DPB3-1 in Arabidopsis thaliana does not have negative effects on plant growth under non-stress conditions, and increases heat stress tolerance through enhancement of DREB2A activity under heat stress conditions. Credit: Hikaru Sato/University of Tokyo.
The overexpression of DPB3-1 in Arabidopsis thaliana does not have negative effects on plant growth under non-stress conditions, and increases heat stress tolerance through enhancement of DREB2A activity under heat stress conditions. Credit: Hikaru Sato/University of Tokyo.

Heat stress is expected to be a major problem affecting crop productivity as a result of global warming. The current research suggests a new mechanism by which plants acquire heat-stress resistance, the application of which can be used for plant breeding to generate crops with enhanced heat stress tolerance.

The article can be found at: Sato et al. (2014) Arabidopsis DPB3-1, a DREB2A Interactor, Specifically Enhances Heat Stress-Induced Gene Expression by Forming a Heat Stress-Specific Transcriptional Complex with NF-Y Subunits.

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Source: University of Tokyo.
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