Functional Study Of A Receptor-like Kinase, AK065898, On Drought Stress In Rice

Study of Plant receptor-like kinases(RLKs) has become a hot area in plant research field. Plant receptor-like kinaseses had been proved to play critical roles in various biological processes, such as plant growth and development, biotic/abiotic stress resistance et al. RLKs gene family has large members in Rice, but the knowledge of functions of receptor-like kinase gene in rice stil not clear.During development and growth process plants experience various environmental stresses, such as drought, salinity, low and high temperature, but plants themselves have evolved multiple mechanism to resist these abiotic stresses.In this study, we use RNAi strategy to analyze the functions of some candidate receptor-like kinases (RLKs) genes in rice. We found that a SRK-like RLK gene, AK065898, may involve in drought tolerance in rice. Structural analysis of this gene revealed that it has a s-locus domain, transmembran domain and a typical kianse domain, so it should belongs to SRK-like RLK famiy. This gene is greatly induced by 30%PEG and 100uM ABA treatment, slightly induced by 200mM NaCl and 100uM NAA, but is not induced by low temperature treatment in rice. The RNAi transgene lines exhibited increased drought tolerance compared with wild- type and control, after dought treatment, the survival rate, fresh weight, and chlorophyll content in RNAi transgenic rice increased two times compare to WT. The express pattern analysis revealed that AK065898 express in germinated seed, root, node and flower, but no in leafe. Subcellular localization analysis showed that AK065898 located in plasma membrane and nucleus. All these data indicated that the RNA interference of AK065898 enhance plant drought tolerance, so AK065898 may in drought stess response.