title: Expression of Arabidopsis glycine-rich RNA-binding protein AtGRP2 or AtGRP7 improves grain yield of rice (Oryza sativa) under drought stress conditions.
abstract: Although posttranscriptional regulation of RNA metabolism is increasingly recognized as a key regulatory process in plant response to environmental stresses, reports demonstrating the importance of RNA metabolism control in crop improvement under adverse environmental stresses are severely limited. To investigate the potential use of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) in developing stress-tolerant transgenic crops, we generated transgenic rice plants (Oryza sativa) that express Arabidopsis thaliana glycine-rich RBP (AtGRP) 2 or 7, which have been determined to harbor RNA chaperone activity and confer stress tolerance in Arabidopsis, and analyzed the response of the transgenic rice plants to abiotic stresses. AtGRP2- or AtGRP7-expressing transgenic rice plants displayed similar phenotypes comparable with the wild-type plants under high salt or cold stress conditions. By contrast, AtGRP2- or AtGRP7-expressing transgenic rice plants showed much higher recovery rates and grain yields compared with the wild-type plants under drought stress conditions. The higher grain yield of the transgenic rice plants was due to the increases in filled grain numbers per panicle. Collectively, the present results show the importance of posttranscriptional regulation of RNA metabolism in plant response to environmental stress and suggest that GRPs can be utilized to improve the yield potential of crops under stress conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biotechnology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Chonnam National University, 300 Yongbong-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju 500-757, South Korea.
authors.forename: Deok Hee
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Kyung Jin
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Kwak
authors.forename: Min Kyung
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Su Jung
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Kwang-Yeol
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Hunseung
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kang
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000235:genetics; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D003080:Cold Temperature; D055864:Droughts; D002523:Edible Grain / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D012275:Oryza / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development; D010641:Phenotype; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D055049:Salt Tolerance / Q000235:genetics; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000235:genetics; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins; C118496:GRP7 protein, Arabidopsis; C521041:GRP2 protein, Arabidopsis
keywords: Abiotic stress; CSP; GRP; RBP; RNA chaperone; RNA-binding protein; Rice; Yield improvement; cold shock protein; glycine-rich RNA-binding protein