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Expression of the Arabidopsis AtMYB44 gene confers drought/salt-stress tolerance in transgenic soybean

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Abstract

AtMYB44, a member of the subgroup 22 R2R3 MYB transcription factors, positively regulates abscisic acid signaling to induce stomatal closure, thus conferring drought/salt-stress tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana. In this study, AtMYB44 was transformed into soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] using the cotyledonary-node method. The resulting homozygous lines were shorter than the non-transgenic controls (Bert) throughout the growth period when grown in a greenhouse. The transgenic soybeans exhibited significantly enhanced drought/salt-stress tolerance, as observed in Arabidopsis. In field cultivation studies, the transgenic soybean plants showed reduced growth, but much higher yields upon seed harvest, demonstrating improved environmental stress tolerance. The amino acid and fatty acid compositions were not significantly altered in seeds harvested from the transgenic lines. These results suggest that the interaction of AtMYB44 with specific sequences in target gene promoters and/or specific proteins activates a tolerance mechanism that is conserved in Arabidopsis and soybean.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Drs. Suk Hoo Yoon and Jin-Bong Hwang of the Korea Food Research Institute for technical advice on the chemical composition analyses. This research was supported by the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology through a grant from the Crop Functional Genomics Center (CG2142) and the Basic Science Research Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF, grant number 2010-0025636). Graduate fellowships through the Brain Korea 21 Project are also acknowledged.

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Author notes

  1. David A. Somers

    Present address: Monsanto Co., 700 Chesterfield Parkway West, Mail Code CC5A, Office CC5221, Chesterfield, MO, 63017, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Biotechnology and Center for Agricultural Biomaterials, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-921, Korea

    Jun Sung Seo, Hwang Bae Sohn, Kaeyoung Noh, Choonkyun Jung, Yang Do Choi, Tae Wha Moon & Jong-Joo Cheong

  2. Department of Food and Nutrition, Seowon University, Chongju, 361-742, Korea

    Ju Hee An & Chung Ho Kim

  3. Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    Christopher M. Donovan & David A. Somers

  4. Bio-Evaluation Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Cheongwon, Chungbuk, 363-883, Korea

    Dae In Kim, Soon-Chun Jeong, Chang-Gi Kim & Hwan Mook Kim

  5. Department of Plant Science and Research Institute for Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-921, Korea

    Suk-Ha Lee

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  1. Jun Sung Seo
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Correspondence to Chung Ho Kim or Jong-Joo Cheong.

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C. M. Donovan, retired.

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Seo, J.S., Sohn, H.B., Noh, K. et al. Expression of the Arabidopsis AtMYB44 gene confers drought/salt-stress tolerance in transgenic soybean. Mol Breeding 29, 601–608 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-011-9576-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-011-9576-8

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