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Title: Expression of AtGRXS17 in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) enhances tolerance to drought stress

Author
item SPRAGUE, STUART - Kansas State University
item HU, YING - Kansas State University
item WU, QINGYU - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
item PARK, DAN - Dartmouth University
item CHENG, NING-HUI - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item HIRSCHI, KENDAL - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item WHITE, FRANK - Kansas State University
item PARK, SUNGHUN - Kansas State University

Submitted to: Plant Biology Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/1/2014
Publication Date: 7/12/2014
Citation: Sprague, S., Hu, Y., Wu, Q., Park, D., Cheng, N., Hirschi, K., White, F.F., Park, S. 2014. Expression of AtGRXS17 in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) enhances tolerance to drought stress [abstract]. 2014 Plant Biology Annual Meeting, July 12-16, 2014, Portland, Oregon. Abiotic Stress - Water, P05032-B, p. 88.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The monothiol glutaredoxin AtGRXS17 from "Arabidopsis" provides thermotolerance in yeast, "Arabidopsis", and tomato. Here we report its crucial role in drought response as well as its ortholog SlGRXS17’s ability to complement a T-DNA insertional AtGRXS17 "Arabidopsis" mutant under heat stress, therefore suggesting a similar function of SlGRXS17. AtGRXS17-expressing tomato plants retained twice the shoot water content as compared to wild-type plants under water limiting conditions. Enhanced drought tolerance correlated with elevated levels of endogenous abscisic acid(ABA)-responsive element binding protein 1 ("SlAREB1"), which mediates ABA-dependent drought tolerance. Plants also showed much higher chlorophyll fluorescence under water deficit conditions. Preliminary analysis of SlGRXS17 RNAi tomato plants suggests that SlGRXS17 is also involved in ABA dependent drought response. Exogenous application of abscisic acid showed a hypersensitive stomatal conductance response in RNAi but not wild-type plants. Further, Arabidopsis "AtGRXS17" knockout mutants transformed with "SlGRXS17" showed increased root length and overall growth under heat stress as compared to the knockout mutant. These findings indicate that AtGRXS17 and its ortholog SlGRXS17 may have similar functions and impact drought response pathways which may provide a general approach to improve tolerance to drought stresses in agriculturally important crop species.