This paper is relevant to the impact areas in the following areas:
| Crops | Maize, Rice |
| Traits | Other |
| Countries | Not country-specific |
| Regions | Not region-specific |
| Tags | drought tolerance, maize, rice |
In this article, we demonstrate that expression of related cold shock proteins (CSPs) from bacteria, CspA from Escherichia coli and CspB from Bacillus subtilis, promotes stress adaptation in multiple plant species. Interestingly, expression of CSP proteins in maize is not associated with negative pleiotropic effects, indicating that stress tolerance does not come at a cost to crop productivity under well-watered conditions.
The stress tolerance conferred by CSPs represents a novel, compelling approach toward engineering improved plant productivity in suboptimal growth conditions. These studies have confirmed that this family of proteins is capable of delivering broad stress tolerance, which also translates to improvements in grain yield under both managed stress studies and marketplace environments. As water resources become increasingly scarce and the global demands for grain continue to increase, the ability to bring yield stability across water-limiting environments presents an important advancement in the area of stress tolerance research. The opportunity exists for the drought tolerant trait to be added to a growing set of germplasm and trait options that mitigate environmental stresses on the corn plant and provide the crop with a better opportunity to reach its yield potential in any environment.
Bacterial RNA Chaperones Confer Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants and Improved Grain Yield in Maize under Water-Limited Conditions (held on an external server, and so may require additional authentication details)
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