Isolation of Multi-Abiotic Stress Response Genes to Generate Global Warming Defense Forage Crops

Abstract

Forage crop management is severely challenged by global warming-induced climate changes representing diverse a/biotic stresses. Thus, screening of valuable genetic resources would be applied to develop stress-tolerant forage crops. We isolated two NAC (NAM,ATAF1, ATAF2, CUC2) transcription factors (ANAC032 and ANAC083) transcriptionally activated by multi-abiotic stresses (salt,drought, and cold stresses) from Arabidopsis by microarray analysis. The NAC family is one of the most prominent transcriptionfactor families in plants and functions in various biological processes. The enhanced expressions of two ANACs by multi-abioticstresses were validated by quantitative RT-PCR analysis. We also confirmed that both ANACs were localized in the nucleus,suggesting that ANAC032 and ANAC083 act as transcription factors to regulate the expression of downstream target genes. Promoteractivities of ANAC032 and ANAC083 through histochemical GUS staining again suggested that various abiotic stresses strongly driveboth ANACs expressions. Our data suggest that ANAC032 and ANAC083 would be valuable genetic candidates for breedingmulti-abiotic stress-tolerant forage crops via the genetic modification of a single gene.