Overexpression of soybean GmDHN9 gene enhances drought resistance of transgenic Arabidopsis

ABSTRACT

Soybean is one of the important oil crops and a major source of protein and lipids. Drought can cause severe soybean yields. Dehydrin protein (DHN) is a subfamily of LEA proteins that play an important role in plant responses to abiotic stresses. In this study, the soybean GmDHN9 gene was cloned and induced under a variety of abiotic stresses. Results showed that the GmDHN9 gene response was more pronounced under drought induction. Subcellular localization results indicated that the protein was localized in the cytoplasm. The role of transgenic Arabidopsis plants in drought stress response was further studied. Under drought stress, the germination rate, root length, chlorophyll, proline, relative water content, and antioxidant enzyme content of transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana transgenic genes were higher than those of wild-type plants, and transgenic plants contained less O₂⁻, H₂O₂ and MDA contents. In short, the GmDHN9 gene can regulate the homeostasis of ROS and enhance the drought resistance of plants.

KEYWORDS:

• dehydrin
• drought resistance
• function
• gene expression
• reactive oxygen species

Acknowledgments

We thank SYL and XHF conceived research plans and designed experiments.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author Contributions

SYL and XHF conceived the research plan and designed the experiment. JYF, YZZ, RJD and HJS conducted experiments. JYF wrote the draft. XYW, YS, YSJ, JYF, ZPL, ZYZ and HWY analyzed the data. SYL, SYG, PWW, XHF, PJ and JHY revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/21645698.2024.2327116

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Key Research and Development Project of Department of Science and Technology of Jilin Province (20230203122SF), Science and Technology Project of Department of Education of Jilin Province (JJKH2023KJ),the Young and Middle-aged Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Talent Project (20220508105RC), Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program for College Students in Jilin Province (2022), Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program for College Students in Jilin Province(2023).