| dc.description.abstract | Drought stress is among the major abiotic stresses that have negative effects on the growth
and development of soybean plants. Therefore, the development of drought-tolerant
soybean varieties is essential to cope with this adverse environmental condition. According
to previous studies, “NAM, ATAF1/2 and CUC2” (NAC) transcription factors genes have been
known to play vital roles in plant response and adaptation to drought stress. NAC genes
encode an important family of plant transcription factors (TFs) which has demonstrated
their potential as target for manipulating to improve drought tolerance in plants. In this
study, GmNAC085-overexpressing transgenic soybean plants were used to study droughtrelated functions of GmNAC085 through expression profile of several important stressresponsive genes under water deficit conditions. Expression analysis has revealed significant
effects of overexpressing GmNAC085 on expression of five stress-responsive genes,
including GmDREB1A, GmERD1, GmDHN15, GmP5CS, and GmHSP70. According to the
results, the transgenic soybean plants showed significantly higher level than WT in
expression of four out of five studied stress-responsive marker genes, except DHN15 which
was lower in expression levels. These results indicated that GmNAC085 may positively
contribute to the adaptability of soybean plants in response to drought stress, which would
result in crop yield improvement. Therefore, it requires further experiments relating to
GmNAC085 to confirm that the soybean plants could acquire better drought resistance
capacity. | en_US |
