Global warming has greatly affected our environment, and temperature increases significantly affect plant growth and seriously threaten crop production. For example, the heat wave of the 2013 summer in Eastern China had a devastating impact on crops. However, genetic engineering to enhance plant tolerance to high temperature conditions has been rarely reported. Therefore, discovery and application of more thermotolerance genes are critical to thermotolerance improvement in crops.  

The QTL gene encodes the receptor-like kinase ERECTA (ER). They found that the loss-of-function er mutants exhibit hypersensitivity to heat, whereas ER overexpression confers high thermotolerance in the model plant Arabidopsis.  

They further recognized that ER could prevent heat-induced cell damage likely through activating a cell protection pathway. Field tests at multiple locations and seasons clearly proved that ER overexpression could enhance heat tolerance of transgenic tomato and rice during the summer. 

Moreover, they found that loss-of-function mutation of a rice ER homolog or low-expressed tomato ER alleles decreased thermotolerance whereas highly-expressed tomato ER alleles increased thermotolerance. 

Interestingly, ER-overexpressing transgenic plants display increased biomass, enhanced water use efficiency and drought tolerance, favoring agronomy.  

This study thus reveals a promising tool for breeding crops with high thermotolerance without sacrificing growth.     

The study entitled “Overexpression of receptor-like kinase ERECTA improves thermotolerance in rice and tomato” was published online in Nature Biotechnology on August 17. 

The research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Ministry of Agriculture of China, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.