Molecular Plant Breeding 2024, Vol.15, No.3, 90-99 http://genbreedpublisher.com/index.php/mpb 90 Review and Progress Open Access Research Progress of NAC Transcription Factor Family in Plant Stress Resistance Ziyi Zhu1,2, XiaAn1 , Xiahong Luo1, Changli Chen1, Tingting Liu1, LinaZou1, Guanlin Zhu1 1 Zhejiang Institute of Landscape Plants and Flowers (Zhejiang Xiaoshan Cotton and Hemp Research Institute), Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 311251, Zhejiang, China 2 College of Environment and Resources, College of Carbon Neutrality, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou, 311300, Zhejiang, China Corresponding email: anxia@zaas.ac.cn Molecular Plant Breeding, 2024, Vol.15, No.3 doi: 10.5376/mpb.2024.15.0011 Received: 27 May., 2024 Accepted: 20 Jun., 2024 Published: 25 Jun., 2024 Copyright © 2024 Zhu et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Zhu Z.Y., An X., Luo X.H., Chen C.L., Liu T.T., Zou L.N., and Zhu G.L., 2024, Research progress of NAC transcription factor family in plant stress resistance, Molecular Plant Breeding, 15(3): 90-99 (doi: 10.5376/mpb.2024.15.0011) Abstract NAC (NAM, ATAF1/2, and CUC2) transcription factors are a class of plant specific transcription factor genes with numerous family members, commonly found in higher plants, and also found in moss plants. The N-terminus of these genes has a highly conserved NAC domain. It plays a crucial role in the growth and development of plants, as well as in their response to biotic stress (such as insects and plant pathogens) and abiotic stress (such as drought, salinity, temperature, and heavy metals). This article introduces the basic characteristics of the NAC transcription factor family and briefly elaborates on its research in plant stress resistance in recent years, providing some reference for future research on the stress resistance of NAC transcription factors. Keywords Transcription factors; NACgene; Resistance to adversity; Plant 1 Introduction Plants, as primary producers in ecosystems, have been exposed to a number of unfavorable environments during their long evolution, mainly including biotic stresses and abiotic stresses. Studies have shown that annual yield losses due to biotic stresses are estimated to be about 35% and abiotic stresses can lead to more than 50% yield losses (Mukhtar and Stockle, 2016). In order to survive and reproduce, plants have evolved complex mechanisms to sense environmental changes and respond adaptively, in which transcription factors play an extremely important regulatory role. Transcription factors are a crucial component of gene regulation; they are a set of protein molecules that specifically bind to particular sequences upstream of the 5' end of genes, ensuring the expression of target genes in precise temporal and spatial patterns. In plant systems, such molecules play an indispensable role in regulating plant growth and development as well as adaptive responses to environmental stresses, and NAC, WRKY, MYB, MYC, bZIP, DREB, and CBF are some of the more common transcription factors. Among them, the NAC transcription factor family is one of the important transcription factor families in plants, and the name of this transcription factor family comes from the NAMgene in the Petunia × hybrida hort. ex Vilm, the ATAF1 and ATAF2 genes in Arabidopsis thaliana, and the CUC2 gene. In this paper, the basic structural features of the NAC transcription factor family are described in detail, and the related research progress in plant stress tolerance is sorted out and analyzed in the hope of providing a certain theoretical basis for the study of stress tolerance of the NAC transcription factor family. There are many members of the NAC transcription factor family, and each of the members plays a unique function in the response to a specific biotic or abiotic stress. In recent years, the research on NAC transcription factors has made remarkable progress in plant stress tolerance. The following table summarizes the functions of different NAC transcription factors in response to abiotic (Table 1) and biotic (Table 2) stresses in different plants. 2 Characterization of the NAC Transcription Factor Family The NAC family of transcription factors has a distinctive structural feature (Figure 1), the amino acid-terminal-containing NAC structural domain, consisting of 150~160 amino acid residues, which is responsible
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