DOI 10.1007/s00122-007-0538-9ORIGINAL PAPER Over-expression of a LEA gene in rice improves drought resistance under the Weld conditions

Abstract Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins have been implicated in many stress responses of plants. In this report, a LEA protein gene OsLEA3-1 was identiWed and over-expressed in rice to test the drought resistance of transgenic lines under the Weld conditions. OsLEA3-1 is induced by drought, salt and abscisic acid (ABA), but not by cold stress. The promoter of OsLEA3-1 isolated from the upland rice IRAT109 exhibits strong activity under drought- and salt-stress conditions. Three expression con-structs consisting of the full-length cDNA driven by the drought-inducible promoter of OsLEA3-1 (OsLEA3-H), the CaMV 35S promoter (OsLEA3-S), and the rice Actin1 promoter (OsLEA3-A) were transformed into the drought-sensitive japonica rice Zhonghua 11. Drought resistance pre-screening of T1 families at anthesis stage revealed tha