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

Abstract 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 theMhERF113-like gene fromMalus hupehensis.MhERF113-like is significantly induced by drought and highly expressed in leaves. Overexpression ofMhERF113-like positively regulated the drought tolerance of apple callus, as judged by less electrolyte leakage, lower malonaldehyde (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) contents in OE than those of the WT apple callus under drought stress. In addition, ectopic expression ofMhERF113-like gene in tomatoes improved the drought tolerance, accompanied by enhanced expression of antioxidant genes (SlAPXandSlSOD) and stress responsive genes (SlDREB2AandSlRD29), and reduced H2O2and O2-contents in transgenic tomato. Taken together, our study demonstrated thatMhERF113-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.