The AP2/ERF transcription factor MhERF113-like positively regulates drought tolerance in transgenic tomato and apple

Drought is a major abiotic stress in agriculture that severely affects crop growth, yield, and quality. The APETALA2/ethylene responsive factor (AP2/ERF) plays a crucial role in maintaining plant growth, development, as well as stress tolerance. Herein, we cloned and characterized the MhERF113- like gene from Malus hupehensis . MhERF113- like is significantly induced by drought and highly expressed in leaves. Overexpression of MhERF113- like positively regulated the drought tolerance of apple callus, as judged by less electrolyte leakage, lower malonaldehyde (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H ₂ O ₂ ) contents in OE than those of the WT apple callus under drought stress. In addition, ectopic expression of MhERF113- like gene in tomatoes improved the drought tolerance, accompanied by enhanced expression of antioxidant genes ( SlAPX and SlSOD ) and stress responsive genes ( SlDREB2A and SlRD29 ), and reduced H ₂ O ₂ and O ₂ ^- contents in transgenic tomato. Taken together, our study demonstrated that MhERF113- like may play an important role in the regulation of plant drought tolerance, which may provide a key factor for future biotechnology applications to improve drought stress tolerance in plants.