Study the expression patterns of drought related genes in arabidopsis plants carrying Glycine max GmRR34 under drought condition

Abstract

As a result of global climate change and world’s population rapid growth, increase in the frequency and intensity of drought occurrence leads to a further yield loss in agriculture. Two-component systems (TCSs) have been reported to function in regulating plant growth, development and responses to drought. From previous research on a subset of TCS members in soybean, expression of GmRR34 was found to be upregulated in roots of the drought-tolerant soybean cultivar in comparison with that of the drought-sensitive cultivar under drought conditions. Subsequent study using Arabidopsis ectopically expressing GmRR34 showed that the transgenic plants acquired better survival rate under water deficit condition. Herein, this project was carried out to further investigate the molecular regulation mechanism of GmRR34 in plant response to drought condition in these ectopic expression lines of Arabidopsis. The obtained data from quantitative RT-PCR suggested that the over-expression of GmRR34 could contribute to the improved drought tolerance of the transgenic plants by altering expression of several well-known drought-related genes, including CSD1, CAT1, LEA14, RD29A and RAB18. Therefore, this study provided extra evidence for GmRR34 as a positive regulator in mediating drought tolerance in plants. Future indepth investigations on GmRR34 biological functions should be continued to obtain comprehensive scientific knowledge about GmRR34 as well as serve as platform for generation of crops with enhanced drought tolerance by genetic engineering.