Stress tolerance and delayed senescence in plants

Abstract

The novel constructs and methods of this invention improve tolerance in plants to environmental stresses and senescence. Nucleic acids encoding a plant farnesyl transferase are described, as are transgenic plants and seeds incorporating these nucleic acids and proteins. Also provided are inhibitors of naturally-occurring farnesyl transferase which, when expressed, will enhance drought tolerance in the plants, improve resistance to senescence and modify growth habit.

1 . A method of producing a drought-tolerant plant comprising: 
 a) providing a nucleic acid construct comprising a promoter operably-linked to an a nucleic acid sequence encoding a beta subunit of a farnesyl transferase polypeptide or fragment thereof;    b) inserting said nucleic acid construct into a vector;    c) transforming a plant, tissue culture, or a plant cell with the vector and    d) growing the plant or regenerating a plant from the tissue culture or plant cell;    wherein a drought-tolerant plant is produced.    
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said nucleic acid sequence comprises SEQ ID NO:1, or SEQ ID NO 178.  
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said nucleic acid construct comprises SEQ ID NO:79.  
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said promoter is a guard cell specific promoter.  
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said promoter is an era-1 promoter comprising the nucleic acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:3.  
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said promoter is an inducible promoter.  
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said promoter is a RD29AP promoter.  
     
     
         8 . A drought tolerant transgenic plant produced by the method of  claim 1 .  
     
     
         9 . A transgenic seed produced by the transgenic plant of  claim 8 , wherein said transgenic seed produces a drought tolerant plant.