Multiple Stress Responsive WRKY Transcription Factor, StWRKY2, Enhances Drought and Late Blight Resistance in Transgenic Potato

Potato is one of the most important food crops both in terms of human consumption and is surrounded with wide range of environmental challenges including abiotic and biotic stresses. Drought and late blight are two major stress factors that seriously affect potato production around the world. The WRKY transcription factors are key players to fine tune plant responses under various stresses. In current study, an attempt to characterize the gene Solanum tuberosum WRKY2 (StWRKY2) has been described. The results show that StWRKY2 is involved in resistance mechanism to abiotic and biotic stress. StWRKY2 was localized in the nucleus and showed transactivation activity in yeast cells. StWRKY2 was induced by various stress conditions and hormones in E. coli as well as in potato plants. Potato plants overexpressing StWRKY2 enhanced its tolerance to drought stress via different mechanisms such as preventing water loss by inducing stomatal closure and increased ROS-scavenging ability under drought stress conditions. Moreover, it enhanced the potato resistance to late blight disease through the induction of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes expression. Overall, our findings manifested that StWRKY2 is a potential candidate for biotic and abiotic resistance and could be used for engineering drought tolerance and late blight resistance in other plants specifically solanaceous crops. (C) 2020 Friends Science Publishers