title: NAC transcription factors in plant multiple abiotic stress responses: progress and prospects.
abstract: Abiotic stresses adversely affect plant growth and agricultural productivity. According to the current climate prediction models, crop plants will face a greater number of environmental stresses, which are likely to occur simultaneously in the future. So it is very urgent to breed broad-spectrum tolerant crops in order to meet an increasing demand for food productivity due to global population increase. As one of the largest families of transcription factors (TFs) in plants, NAC TFs play vital roles in regulating plant growth and development processes including abiotic stress responses. Lots of studies indicated that many stress-responsive NAC TFs had been used to improve stress tolerance in crop plants by genetic engineering. In this review, the recent progress in NAC TFs was summarized, and the potential utilization of NAC TFs in breeding abiotic stress tolerant transgenic crops was also be discussed. In view of the complexity of field conditions and the specificity in multiple stress responses, we suggest that the NAC TFs commonly induced by multiple stresses should be promising candidates to produce plants with enhanced multiple stress tolerance. Furthermore, the field evaluation of transgenic crops harboring NAC genes, as well as the suitable promoters for minimizing the negative effects caused by over-expressing some NAC genes, should be considered.
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Bioresources of Saline Soils; Provincial Key Laboratory of Agrobiology, Institute of Agro-biotechnology, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences Nanjing, China ; Key Laboratory of Coastal Biology and Bioresources, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research (YIC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Yantai, China.
authors.forename: Hongbo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Coastal Biology and Bioresources, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research (YIC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Yantai, China ; Institute of Technology, Yantai Academy of China Agriculture University Yantai, China.
authors.forename: Hongyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Coastal Biology and Bioresources, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research (YIC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Yantai, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tang
keywords: NAC; abiotic stress; multiple stresses; transcription factors; transgenic plant