干旱是限制农作物产量和品质的重要环境因子之一，但是植物对干旱耐受性的潜在分子机制却仍不清楚。近年来，大量研究证明WRKY基因家族成员在植物对干旱胁迫的反应及其信号转导途径的建立过程中起着极其重要的调控作用。 

　　版纳植物园植物环境适应性研究组与植物分子生物学研究组合作研究发现，在水稻中高表达拟南芥WRKY57基因能显著提高水稻对干旱、高盐和PEG的耐受性。进一步研究表明，高表达拟南芥WRKY57基因后除了能增强水稻对ROS的清除能力，还促进了胁迫相关基因(OsP5CS, OsDREB1A, OsDREB2A, OsRAB21 and OsRab16D)的表达，从而提高了水稻在干旱、高盐和PEG胁迫条件下的耐受能力。 

　　相关研究以Heterologous Expression of AtWRKY57 Confers Drought Tolerance in Oryza sativa为题发表在Frontiers in Plant Science 上，姜艳娟副研究员为该论文的第一作者，余迪求研究员为该论文的通讯作者。该研究得到国家自然科学基金-青年科学基金(31300252)、中国科学院“西部之光”项目及云南省“创新研究团队”项目(2014HC017)的资助。（来源;中国科学院西双版纳热带植物园 姜艳娟） 

　　Heterologous Expression of AtWRKY57 Confers Drought Tolerance in Oryza sativa 

　　Abstract  Drought stress is a severe environmental factor that greatly restricts plant distribution and crop production. Recently, we have found that overexpressing AtWRKY57 enhanced drought tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana. In this study, we further reported that the Arabidopsis WRKY57 transcription factor was able to confer drought tolerance to transgenic rice (Oryza sativa) plants. The enhanced drought tolerance of transgenic rice was resulted from the lower water loss rates, cell death, malondialdehyde contents and relative electrolyte leakage while a higher proline content and reactive oxygen species-scavenging enzyme activities was observed during stress conditions. Moreover, further investigation revealed that the expression levels of several stress-responsive genes were up-regulated in drought-tolerant transgenic rice plants, compared with those in wild-type plants. In addition to the drought tolerance, the AtWRKY57 over-expressing plants also had enhanced salt and PEG stress tolerances. Taken together, our study indicates that over-expressing AtWRKY57 in rice improved not only drought tolerance but also salt and PEG tolerance, demonstrating its potential role in crop improvement. 

　　原文链接：http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2016.00145/full