Rice NAC17 transcription factor enhances drought tolerance by modulating lignin accumulation

Se Eun Jung, Tae Hwan Kim, Jae Sung Shim, Seung Woon Bang, Ho Bin Yoon, Shin Hee Oh, Youn Shic Kim, Se-Jun Oh, Jun Sung Seo, Ju-Kon Kim.

Plant Science; Available online 30 July 2022, 111404

Abstract

Land plants have developed a comprehensive system to cope with the drought stress, and it is operated by intricate signaling networks, including transcriptional regulation. Herein, we identified the function of OsNAC17, a member of NAC (NAM, ATAF, and CUC2) transcription factor family, in drought tolerance. OsNAC17 is localized to the nucleus, and its expression was significantly induced under drought conditions. A transactivation assay in yeast revealed that the OsNAC17 is a transcriptional activator, harboring an activation domain in the C-terminal region. Overexpressing (OsNAC17^OX) transgenic plants showed drought-tolerant, and knock-out (OsNAC17^KO) plants exhibited drought susceptible phenotype compared to non-transgenic plants. Further investigation revealed that OsNAC17 positively regulates several lignin biosynthetic genes and promotes lignin accumulation in leaves and roots. Together, our results show that OsNAC17 contributes to drought tolerance through lignin biosynthesis in rice.

See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168945222002291#!