Drought (soil water deficit) as a major adverse environmental condition can result in
serious reduction in plant growth and crop production. Plants respond and adapt to
drought stresses by triggering various signalling pathways leading to physiological,
metabolic and developmental changes that may ultimately contribute to enhanced
tolerance to the stress. Here, a novel non-coding RNA (ncRNA) involved in plant
drought stress tolerance was identified. We showed that increasing the expression of
this ncRNA led to enhanced sensitivity during seed germination and seedling growth
to the phytohormone abscisic acid. The mutant seedlings are also more sensitive to
osmotic stress inhibition of lateral root growth. Consistently, seedlings with
enhanced expression of this ncRNA exhibited reduced transiprational water loss and
were more drought-tolerant than the wild type. Future analyses of the mechanism for
its role in drought tolerance may help us to understand how plant drought tolerance
could be further regulated by this novel ncRNA.
| Date of Award | May 2014 |
|---|
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|
| Awarding Institution | - Biological, Environmental Sciences and Engineering
|
|---|
| Supervisor | Liming Xiong (Supervisor) |
|---|
- Abiotic Stress
- Drought
- ncRNA
- arabidopsis thaliana