Tomato SlERF26 enhances drought tolerance by regulating SlPIP2;4-mediated ROS homeostasis
- 1Key Laboratory of Agricultural Biosafety and Green Production of Upper Yangtze River (Ministry of Education), College of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Southwest University, No.2 Tiansheng Road, Beibei, Chongqing 400715, China.
- 2College of Horticulture and Forestry, Xinjiang Production &Construction Corps Key Laboratory of Protected Agriculture, Tarim University, Alar, Xinjiang 843300, China.
- 3Biotechnology and Germplasm Resources Institute, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Kunming 650205, China.
Abstract
Adverse environmental conditions severely limit plant growth and productivity, especially under an increasingly frequent and severe drought. Cultivated tomato is highly sensitive to drought, while wild tomato species exhibit remarkable drought tolerance. In this study, we identified SlERF26 as a drought-responsive gene that was differentially expressed between drought-tolerant Solanum pennellii introgression lines and the cultivated tomato background through combined introgression-line and transcriptomic analyses. SlERF26 encodes an AP2/ERF (APETALA2/Ethylene Response Factor) transcription factor. Under drought stress, overexpression of SlERF26 reduced the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), including H₂O₂ and O₂⁻, which is consistent with its positive role in regulating drought tolerance. Transcriptome profiling further indicated that SlERF26 regulated a series of drought-responsive genes involved in membrane transport and ROS scavenging, such as aquaporin and peroxidases. Specifically, SlERF26 directly bound to the promoter of SlPIP2;4, an aquaporin gene, and activated its transcription. The slpip2;4 mutant accumulated higher ROS levels and exhibited significantly reduced drought tolerance. Moreover, analysis of SlERF26 OE × slpip2;4 hybrid plants confirms that SlERF26 acts upstream of SlPIP2;4 in drought tolerance. Consistent with this genetic relationship, biochemical quantification and histochemical staining demonstrated that SlERF26 and SlPIP2;4 act together to maintain ROS homeostasis during drought stress. Collectively, our findings define a SlERF26-SlPIP2;4 regulatory module that enhances drought tolerance in tomato by modulating aquaporin expression and ROS homeostasis.
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BibTeX
@article{wang2026tomato,
title = {{Tomato SlERF26 enhances drought tolerance by regulating SlPIP2;4-mediated ROS homeostasis}},
author = {Yaling Wang and Xiaomeng Hu and Jiayan Yang and Yongjie Mo and Huifang Hou and Yin Ding and Wenrui Gong and Pan Zeng and Chunyu Shang and Xingguo Zhang and Yu Pan and Lang Wu and Hongyuan Song and Nan Hu and Dongyang Dai and Md Mahmudul Hasan and Jinhua Li},
journal = {Horticulture research},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.1093/hr/uhag215},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13719176},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Tomato SlERF26 enhances drought tolerance by regulating SlPIP2;4-mediated ROS homeostasis
AU - Yaling Wang
AU - Xiaomeng Hu
AU - Jiayan Yang
AU - Yongjie Mo
AU - Huifang Hou
AU - Yin Ding
AU - Wenrui Gong
AU - Pan Zeng
AU - Chunyu Shang
AU - Xingguo Zhang
AU - Yu Pan
AU - Lang Wu
AU - Hongyuan Song
AU - Nan Hu
AU - Dongyang Dai
AU - Md Mahmudul Hasan
AU - Jinhua Li
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/02
JO - Horticulture research
DO - 10.1093/hr/uhag215
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13719176
AB - Adverse environmental conditions severely limit plant growth and productivity, especially under an increasingly frequent and severe drought. Cultivated tomato is highly sensitive to drought, while wild tomato species exhibit remarkable drought tolerance. In this study, we identified SlERF26 as a drought-responsive gene that was differentially expressed between drought-tolerant Solanum pennellii introgression lines and the cultivated tomato background through combined introgression-line and transcriptomic analyses. SlERF26 encodes an AP2/ERF (APETALA2/Ethylene Response Factor) transcription factor. Under drought stress, overexpression of SlERF26 reduced the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), including H₂O₂ and O₂⁻, which is consistent with its positive role in regulating drought tolerance. Transcriptome profiling further indicated that SlERF26 regulated a series of drought-responsive genes involved in membrane transport and ROS scavenging, such as aquaporin and peroxidases. Specifically, SlERF26 directly bound to the promoter of SlPIP2;4, an aquaporin gene, and activated its transcription. The slpip2;4 mutant accumulated higher ROS levels and exhibited significantly reduced drought tolerance. Moreover, analysis of SlERF26 OE × slpip2;4 hybrid plants confirms that SlERF26 acts upstream of SlPIP2;4 in drought tolerance. Consistent with this genetic relationship, biochemical quantification and histochemical staining demonstrated that SlERF26 and SlPIP2;4 act together to maintain ROS homeostasis during drought stress. Collectively, our findings define a SlERF26-SlPIP2;4 regulatory module that enhances drought tolerance in tomato by modulating aquaporin expression and ROS homeostasis.
SN - 2662-6810
SN - 2052-7276
ER -