miR408 overexpression causes increased drought tolerance in chickpea

•Overexpression of miR408 leads enhanced drought tolerance in chickpea through the regulation of copper accumulation.•The miR408 overexpression results plantacyanin transcript repression to regulate DREB and other drought responsive genes.•Expression level of bhlh23 gene was significantly reduced in transgenic miR408 plants.

Drought stress limits yield severely in most of the crops. Plants utilize complex gene regulation mechanisms to tolerate water deficiency as well as other abiotic stresses. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs that are progressively recognized as important regulators of gene expression acting at post-transcriptional level. miR408, conserved in terrestrial plants, targets copper related genes. Although, expression level of miR408 is influenced by various environmental factors including drought stress, the biological action of miR408 is still unclear. To examine the miR408 function upon drought stress in chickpea, transgenic lines overexpressing the miR408 were generated. Induced tolerance was observed in the plants with enhanced miR408 expression upon 17-day water deficiency. Expression levels of miR408 target gene together with seven drought responsive genes were measured using qRT-PCR. Here, the involvement of miR408 in drought stress response has been reported. The overexpression leading plantacyanin transcript repression caused regulation of DREB and other drought responsive genes.

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