Tomato HsfA1a plays a critical role in plant drought tolerance by activating ATG genes and inducing autophagy.

ABSTRACT: Autophagy plays critical roles in plant responses to stress. In contrast to the wealth of information concerning the core process of plant autophagosome assembly, our understanding of the regulation of autophagy is limited. In this study, we demonstrated that transcription factor HsfA1a played a critical role in tomato tolerance to drought stress, in part through its positive role in induction of autophagy under drought stress. HsfA1a expression was induced by drought stress. Virus-induced HsfA1a gene silencing reduced while its overexpression increased plant drought tolerance based on both symptoms and membrane integrity. HsfA1a-silenced plants were more sensitive to endogenous ABA-mediated stomatal closure, while its overexpression lines were resistant under drought stress, indicating th

SUBMITTER: Wang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4824577 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature