Affiliation:
1. College of Agronomy, National Key Laboratory of Wheat and Maize Crop Science and Key Laboratory of Regulating and Controlling Crop Growth and Development Ministry of Education Henan Agricultural University Zhengzhou Henan China
2. Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture Assiut University Assiut Egypt
3. State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Adaptation and Improvement, School of Life Sciences Henan University Kaifeng China
Abstract
AbstractDrought is a major abiotic stress that limits maize production worldwide. Therefore, it is of great importance to improve drought tolerance in crop plants for sustainable agriculture. In this study, we examined the roles of Cys2/His2 zinc‐finger‐proteins (C2H2‐ZFPs) in maize's drought tolerance as C2H2‐ZFPs have been implicated for plant stress tolerance. By subjecting 150 Ac/Ds mutant lines to drought stress, we successfully identified a Ds‐insertion mutant, zmc2h2‐149, which shows increased tolerance to drought stress. Overexpression of ZmC2H2‐149 in maize led to a decrease in both drought tolerance and crop yield. DAP‐Seq, RNA‐Seq, Y1H and LUC assays additionally showed that ZmC2H2‐149 directly suppresses the expression of a positive drought tolerance regulator, ZmHSD1 (hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1). Consistently, the zmhsd1 mutants exhibited decreased drought tolerance and grain yield under water deficit conditions compared to their respective wild‐type plants. Our findings thus demonstrated that ZmC2H2‐149 can regulate ZmHSD1 for drought stress tolerance in maize, offering valuable theoretical and genetic resources for maize breeding programmes that aim for improving drought tolerance.