Drought Tolerance Enhancement with Co-Overexpression of DREB2A and APX in Indica Rice (<i>Oryza sativa</i> L.)

Rice is a major cereal crop providing food and energy to more than half of world’s population drought challenging abiotic stress limiting rice production. Engineering tolerance trait bottle neck because multigenic control complex nature. Two promising candidate genes utilized in engineering include DREB2A transcription factor (a master regulator downstream inducible genes) APX (an important ROS scavenging enzyme). Overexpression DREB has shown encouraging results but with negative impact on plant morphology Moreover, co-expression genes’ influence not been studied. Hence, the present study, overexpression single or these were studied for enhancement indica rice. Both under CaMV 35S promoter transferred by Agrobacterium transformation into variety BPT5204 popular slender grains South India. Confirmation T-DNA integration genome was done PCR analysis transgenes. Homozygous transgenic lines DREB2A, DREB2A-APX generated T3 generation evaluated during seed germination, vegetative reproductive stages. In germination stage, exhibited higher rates 200 mM mannitol MS medium comparison WT. with-holding water 7 days chlorophyll, proline, reducing sugars enhanced activities APX, SOD catalase enzymes as well reduced MDA content. The qRT-PCR revealed relative transgene expression stress. before maturity restoring normal conditions, developed longer panicles number grains/plant compared overall indicate that can provide plants combat climate change conditions.