Understanding the mode of regulation of proline biosynthesis for drought tolerance in transgenic rice overexpressing PDH47 gene

Abstract

Plants respond to drought stress by inducing proline accumulation which would promote drought tolerance. During drought, several reports described activation/overexpression of genes encoding enzymes for glutamate and ornithine-based proline biosynthesis pathways that provide tolerance to the plant. Pea DNA helicase 47 (<em>PDH47</em>), involves in drought stress tolerance. However, the exact mechanism for drought tolerance is not known. The present study will provide insights into how overexpression of a <em>PDH47</em> in transgenic rice confers drought tolerance by further escalating the accumulation of proline. Here, the developed transgenic plants expressing <em>PDH47</em> showed increased tolerance to drought with increased expression of proline biosynthesis genes. Therefore, understanding the combined regulation for expression of proline metabolism genes during drought stress in rice overexpressing drought stress-responsive DEAD-box helicase like <em>PDH47</em> may result in engineering economically important crop plants for more tolerant to drought stress.