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Abiotic stresses such as water deficit, salt, and heat are major environmental factors that negatively affect plant growth, development, and productivity. Previous studies showed that overexpression of the Arabidopsis vacuolar H + -pyrophosphatase gene AVP1 increases salt and water deficit stress tolerance and overexpression of the rice SUMO E3 ligase gene OsSIZ1 improves heat and water deficit stress tolerance in transgenic plants. In this report, the effects of co-overexpression of AVP1 and OsSIZ1 in Arabidopsis on abiotic stress tolerance were studied. It was found that AVP1/OsSIZ1 co-overexpressing plants performed significantly better than AVP1-overexpressing plants and OsSIZ1-overexpressing plants, and produced 100% more seed than wild-type plants under single stress or multiple stress conditions. The increased stress tolerance in AVP1/OsSIZ1 co-overexpressing plants was substantially larger than the increased stress tolerance in AVP1-overexpressing plants and OsSIZ1-overexpressing plants under every abiotic stress condition tested. This research provides the proof-of-concept that crop yields might be substantially improved using this approach.

Sumoylation is one of the post translational modifications, which affects cellular processes in plants through conjugation of small ubiquitin like modifier (SUMO) to target substrate proteins. Response to various abiotic environmental stresses is one of the major cellular functions regulated by SUMO conjugation. SIZ1 is a SUMO E3 ligase, facilitating a vital step in the sumoylation pathway. In this report, it is demonstrated that over-expression of the rice gene OsSIZ1 in Arabidopsis leads to increased tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses. For example, OsSIZ1-overexpressing plants exhibited enhanced tolerance to salt, drought, and heat stresses, and generated greater seed yields under a variety of stress conditions. Furthermore, OsSIZ1-overexpressing plants were able to exclude sodium ions more efficiently when grown in saline soils and accumulate higher potassium ions as compared to wild-type plants. Further analysis revealed that OsSIZ1-overexpressing plants expressed higher transcript levels of P5CS, a gene involved in the biosynthesis of proline, under both salt and drought stress conditions. Therefore, proline here is acting as an osmoprotectant to alleviate damages caused by drought and salt stresses. These results demonstrate that the rice gene OsSIZ1 has a great potential to be used for improving crop's tolerance to several abiotic stresses., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

PROTEIN PHOSPHATASE 2A (PP2A) is a major group of serine/threonine protein phosphatases in eukaryotes. It is composed of three subunits: scaffolding subunit A, regulatory subunit B, and catalytic subunit C. Assembly of the PP2A holoenzyme in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) depends on Arabidopsis PHOSPHOTYROSYL PHOSPHATASE ACTIVATOR (AtPTPA). Reduced expression of AtPTPA leads to severe defects in plant development, altered responses to abscisic acid, ethylene, and sodium chloride, and decreased PP2A activity. In particular, AtPTPA deficiency leads to decreased methylation in PP2A-C subunits (PP2Ac). Complete loss of PP2Ac methylation in the suppressor of brassinosteroid insensitive1 mutant leads to 30% reduction of PP2A activity, suggesting that PP2A with a methylated C subunit is more active than PP2A with an unmethylated C subunit. Like AtPTPA, PP2A-A subunits are also required for PP2Ac methylation. The interaction between AtPTPA and PP2Ac is A subunit dependent. In addition, AtPTPA deficiency leads to reduced interactions of B subunits with C subunits, resulting in reduced functional PP2A holoenzyme formation. Thus, AtPTPA is a critical factor for committing the subunit A/subunit C dimer toward PP2A heterotrimer formation., (© 2014 American Society of Plant Biologists. All Rights Reserved.)

Increased expression of an Arabidopsis vacuolar pyrophosphatase gene, AVP1, leads to increased drought and salt tolerance in transgenic plants, which has been demonstrated in laboratory and field conditions. The molecular mechanism of AVP1-mediated drought resistance is likely due to increased proton pump activity of the vacuolar pyrophosphatase, which generates a higher proton electrochemical gradient across the vacuolar membrane, leading to lower water potential in the plant vacuole and higher secondary transporter activities that prevent ion accumulation to toxic levels in the cytoplasm. Additionally, overexpression of AVP1 appears to stimulate auxin polar transport, which in turn stimulates root development. The larger root system allows AVP1-overexpressing plants to absorb water more efficiently under drought and saline conditions, resulting in stress tolerance and increased yields. Multi-year field-trial data indicate that overexpression of AVP1 in cotton leads to at least 20% more fiber yield than wild-type control plants in dry-land conditions, which highlights the potential use of AVP1 in improving drought tolerance in crops in arid and semiarid areas of the world.

Soil salinization is a severe abiotic stress that negatively affects plant growth and development, leading to physiological abnormalities and ultimately threatening global food security. The condition arises from excessive salt accumulation in the soil, primarily due to anthropogenic activities such as irrigation, improper land uses, and overfertilization. The presence of Na⁺, Cl−, and other related ions in the soil above normal levels can disrupt plant cellular functions and lead to alterations in essential metabolic processes such as seed germination and photosynthesis, causing severe damage to plant tissues and even plant death in the worst circumstances. To counteract the effects of salt stress, plants have developed various mechanisms, including modulating ion homeostasis, ion compartmentalization and export, and the biosynthesis of osmoprotectants. Recent advances in genomic and proteomic technologies have enabled the identification of genes and proteins involved in plant salt-tolerance mechanisms. This review provides a short overview of the impact of salinity stress on plants and the underlying mechanisms of salt-stress tolerance, particularly the functions of salt-stress-responsive genes associated with these mechanisms. This review aims at summarizing recent advances in our understanding of salt-stress tolerance mechanisms, providing the key background knowledge for improving crops' salt tolerance, which could contribute to the yield and quality enhancement in major crops grown under saline conditions or in arid and semiarid regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salt stress affects the plant growth and productivity worldwide and NHX is one of those genes that are well known to improve salt tolerance in transgenic plants. It is well characterized in several plants, such as Arabidopsis thaliana and cotton; however, not much is known about NHXs in tea plant. In the present study, NHX genes of tea were obtained through a genome-wide search using A. thaliana as reference genome. Out of the 9 NHX genes in tea, 7 genes were localized in vacuole while the remaining 2 genes were localized in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER; CsNHX8) and plasma membrane (PM; CsNHX9), respectively. Furthermore, phylogenetic relationships along with structural analysis which includes gene structure, location, and protein-conserved motifs and domains were systematically examined and further, predictions were validated by the expression analysis. The dN/dS values show that the majority of tea NHX genes is subjected to strong purifying selection under the course of evolution. Also, functional interaction was carried out in Camellia sinensis based on the orthologous genes in A. thaliana. The expression profiles linked to various stress treatments revealed wide involvement of NHX genes from tea in response to various abiotic factors. This study provides the targets for further comprehensive identification, functional study, and also contributed for a better understanding of the NHX regulatory network in C. sinensis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is an enzyme consisting of three subunits: a scaffolding A subunit, a regulatory B subunit and a catalytic C subunit. PP2As were shown to play diverse roles in eukaryotes. In this study, the function of the Arabidopsis PP2A-C5 gene that encodes the catalytic subunit 5 of PP2A was studied using both loss-of-function and gain-of-function analyses. Loss-of-function mutant pp2a-c5-1 displayed more impaired growth during root and shoot development, whereas overexpression of PP2A-C5 conferred better root and shoot growth under different salt treatments, indicating that PP2A-C5 plays an important role in plant growth under salt conditions. Double knockout mutants of pp2a-c5-1 and salt overly sensitive ( sos) mutants sos1-1, sos2-2 or sos3-1 showed additive sensitivity to NaCl, indicating that PP2A-C5 functions in a pathway different from the SOS signalling pathway. Using yeast two-hybrid analysis, four vacuolar membrane chloride channel (CLC) proteins, AtCLCa, AtCLCb, AtCLCc and AtCLCg, were found to interact with PP2A-C5. Moreover, overexpression of AtCLCc leads to increased salt tolerance and Cl− accumulation in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. These data indicate that PP2A-C5-mediated better growth under salt conditions might involve up-regulation of CLC activities on vacuolar membranes and that PP2A-C5 could be used for improving salt tolerance in crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abiotic stresses are major threats to agricultural production. Drought and salinity as two of the major abiotic stresses cause billions of losses in agricultural productivity worldwide each year. Thus, it is imperative to make crops more tolerant. Overexpression of AVP1 or PP2A-C5 was previously shown to increase drought and salt stress tolerance, respectively, in transgenic plants. In this study, the hypothesis that co-overexpression of AVP1 and PP2A-C5 would combine their respective benefits and further improve salt tolerance was tested. The two genes were inserted into the same T-DNA region of the binary vector and then introduced into the Arabidopsis genome through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants expressing both AVP1 and PP2A-C5 at relatively high levels were identified and analyzed. These plants displayed enhanced tolerance to NaCl compared to either AVP1 or PP2A-C5 overexpressing plants. They also showed tolerance to other stresses such as KNO 3 and LiCl at harmful concentrations, drought, and phosphorus deficiency at comparable levels with either AVP1 or PP2A-C5 overexpressing plants. This study demonstrates that introducing multiple genes in single T-DNA region is an effective approach to create transgenic plants with enhanced tolerance to multiple stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]