Researchers in the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture(ISA), Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) have identified a novel rice calmodulin-like gene—OsMSR2 (Oryza sativa L. Multi-Stress– Responsive gene 2), which can enhance drought and salt tolerance and increase ABA sensitivity in Arabidopsis. These findings were published in the Jul. 1 issue of Planta.

Drought and salt are two major environmental factors that adversely affect crop production and distribution worldwide. Abiotic stimuli can elicit rapid changes of cytosolic Ca2+ concentrations. It has been known that Ca2+-mediated signaling pathways play significant roles in plant response to stress. In addition to some well-known Ca2+ sensors, calmodulin-like (CML) is a family of unique Ca2+-binding proteins in plants, but their functions in stress response are largely unknown.

“OsMSR2 is isolated by microarray analysis and quantitative real-time PCR. It is highly induced by multiple stresses and shared high similarity to calmodulin (CaM). OsMSR2 is localized in cytosolic and is able to bind Ca2+. Overexpression of OsMSR2 in Arabidopsis enhances salt and drought tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis, and increases ABA sensitivity accompanied by altered expression of stress/ABA-responsive genes. In our research, we provide a new clue into the comlex picture of Ca2+ signaling pathway involved in plant stress responses," explained Dr. XIA, the corresponding author of this paper.

“In further study, we will try to identify the OsMSR2 target proteins and characterize the gene interaction in stress tolerance to get a better understanding of the functions of CMLs in plants,” Dr. XIA said, “and the study has very important theoretical and practical significance in the development of rice varieties with higher stress tolerance.”

The research was supported by One Hundred Person Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (02200420062903), Major Program of Hunan Province (009FJ1012) and Nitrogen and Phosphorus cycling and manipulation for agro-ecosystems and the Knowledge Innovation program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-T07).