Expression of ECMYB Transcription Factor Gene Under Different Abiotic Stress Conditions in Eleusine coracana

Plants are exposed to various abiotic stress conditions during their lifespan. Abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, extreme temperature, ROS etc. affect crop yield to great extent. Global warming may worsen the situation in the years to come in most agricultural regions. Therefore, it is critical to understand the mechanisms that enable plants to cope with water deficit. Strategies involving genetic engineering show great promise. Coordinated expression of stress responsive genes is very important for the survival of plant under stress conditions and the regulation is brought about by transcription factors (TF). Myb is a family of transcription factor comprising of a few drought responsive TF. The expression of the TF may be regulated with the onset of drought or other abiotic stress conditions. Eleusine coracana being a rainfed crop could be a good source to fish out drought responsive myb gene. The study was carried out to demonstrate the expression of Ecmyb gene in sensitive (PES-400) and tolerant (PRM6107) genotype of E. coracana under drought, cold, ROS and salt stress. Drought stress was provided by withholding water for 11 days whereas cold stress was provided by incubating the plants in BOD incubator at 4°C for different time periods. Similarly salt stress was given by watering the plants with sodium chloride and ROS was created by spraying paraquat on the plants. RT-PCR was carried out to study the expression of Ecmyb gene in different stress conditions. The gene was expressed in the tolerant genotype in all the stress conditions except cold. However, no expression was observed in sensitive genotype under stress condition. Both the sensitive as well as tolerant genotypes did not show Ecmyb gene expression under unstressed condition. The study concludes that the expression of Ecmyb gene was induced with the onset of drought, ROS and salt stress. Cold stress had no effect on the expression of the gene. The transcript was sequenced and submitted to NCBI database (Accession No. JN107890). In-silico analysis showed maximum similarity with drought responsive genes of rice and maize. Future prospects include full length cloning and functional validation of the gene.

The expression of Ecmyb gene was observed in drought tolerant genotype only.

The expression of Ecmyb gene took place under drought and other abiotic stress conditions like, salinity and ROS. Cold stress did not induce the gene expression.

The expression of Ecmyb gene may be related to drought (abiotic stress) tolerance.