Browse Articles

Article|05 Mar 2025|OPEN
Expression of poplar sex-determining gene affects plant drought tolerance and the underlying molecular mechanism
Jing Lu1,2 and Yonghua Yang3 , Tongming Yin,1 ,
1State Key Laboratory for Tree Genetics and Breeding, Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Biotechnology of Educational Department of China, Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing Forestry University, No. 159 Longpan Road, Xuanwu District, Nanjing 210037, China
2Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 47 Bateman Street, Cambridge CB2 1LR, UK
3Institute for Plant Molecular Biology, State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, 163 Xianlin Avenue, Qixia District, Nanjing 210023, China
*Corresponding author. E-mail: tmyin@njfu.com.cn

Horticulture Research 12,
Article number: uhaf066 (2025)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhaf066
Views: 2238

Received: 30 Dec 2024
Accepted: 23 Feb 2025
Published online: 05 Mar 2025

Abstract

It is frequently observed that plant sexes differ in their response to environmental stress. Poplars are dioecious plants, and sex separation of poplars is triggered by the sex-limited expression of the poplar sex-determining gene FERR. In this study, we over-expressed FERR in a male poplar and knocked it out in a female poplar. The over-expression lines exhibited distinct morphological and physiological changes rendering the transformed plants more tolerant to drought stress. By contrast, no obvious change in drought tolerance was observed in the knockout lines. Transcriptome sequencing and molecular interaction analysis demonstrated that the effect of FERR on drought tolerance was conferred by competitive interaction with protein phosphatase 2C and SNF1-related protein kinase 2 (SnRK2). Under drought stress, an FERR-SnRK2s-ARR5 complex forms and activates the ABA signaling pathway. Our results provide direct evidence that the expression of the poplar sex-determining gene pleiotropically affects plant drought tolerance.