Study on the role of GmNACO20 in arabidopsis responses to abiotic stresses

Abstract

Environmental stresses, especially abiotic stressors such as drought and salinity are main harmful agents of plant growth, development and productivity. Through evolution, plants have developed a number of different defense mechanisms to adapt or resist with such disadvantageous conditions. Transcription factors (TFs) have been known to play important role in regulating plant responses against external stresses. From previous study conducted by our group, we have identified a drought-inducible NAC gene in soybean, GmNAC020, which was shown to have positive association with plant drought tolerance degree. In this project, functions of GmNAC020 in plant response to drought and salinity stress conditions were performed using GmNAC020- overexpressing transgenic Arabidopsis plants. With the obtained results, contribution of GmNAC020 to drought tolerance in plants remains inconclusive due to lacking of data and interference of plant aging to the analysis of survival rate. Meanwhile, the results of salinity stress by performing bleaching and root growth assays indicated that the transgenic line overexpressing GmNAC020 had lower bleaching rate and lower root growth inhibition upon exposure to salt stress, suggesting a better salt tolerance degree in the transgenic plants in comparison to the control wild-type plants. Keywords: Abiotic stress, Arabidopsis thaliana, NAC transcription factors, GmNAC020 transgenic plant, drought tolerance, root growth assay, salinity tolerance