Overexpression of an evolutionarily conserved drought-responsive sugarcane gene enhances salinity and drought resilience.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Improving drought adaptation is more pressing for crops such as sugarcane, rice, wheat and maize, given the high dependence of these crops on irrigation. One option for enhancing adaptation to water limitation in plants is by transgenic approaches. An increasing number of genes that are associated with mechanisms used by plants to cope with water scarcity have been discovered. Genes encoding proteins with unknown functions comprise a relevant fraction of the genes that are modulated by drought. We characterized a gene in response to environmental stresses to gain insight into the unknown fraction of the sugarcane genome. Scdr2 (Sugarcane drought-responsive 2) encodes a small protein and shares highly conserved sequences within monocots, dicots, algae and fungi.<

SUBMITTER: Begcy K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6821327 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature