Improving Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Drought Tolerance by Suppressing a NF-YA Transcription Factor

The response to drought stress is a complicated process involving stress sensing, intracellular signaltransduction, and the execution of a cellular response. Transcription factors play important roles in the signaling pathways including abiotic stress. In the present study a rice NF-YA transcription factor gene was partially characterized following dehydration. Disrupting the gene via a T-DNA insertion resulted in drought tolerant plants and a high rate of recovery after water resupply. It was demonstrated that the improved drought tolerance of the mutant is primarily due to non-stomatal mechanisms such as free radical scavenging,which might be related to changes in metabolism of carbohydrates.