The abiotic stress-responsive NAC transcription factor SlNAC11 is involved in drought and salt response in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

Plant-specific NAC (NAM/ATAF/CUC) transcription factors play crucial roles in diverse development processes as well as biotic and abiotic stress responses. Nevertheless, to date only few reports regarding stress-related NAC genes are available in tomato. In this study, we isolated an abiotic stress-responsive NAC gene from tomato, here designated as SlNAC11. Expression analysis revealed that SlNAC11 was induced significantly by dehydration, cold, and heat. The functions of SlNAC11 in abiotic stress were further detected on SlNAC11-RNAi transgenic tomato plants. The results showed that SlNAC11-RNAi plants became less tolerant to drought and salt stress, which were demonstrated by lower level of chlorophyll content and seed germination rate, and higher level of MDA as compared to WT plants under stress conditions. Furthermore, transgenic seedlings exhibited less hypersensitive to ABA, demonstrated by longer hypocotyl and root as compared to WT plants. These results show that SlNAC11 functions as a stress-responsive transcription factor depicting positive response to abiotic stress tolerance and may hold promise for improving stress tolerance in transgenic tomato.