Ectopic expression of wheat TOR coordinates a balance between photosynthetic performance and water use efficiency

Target of Rapamycin (TOR) signaling is a central regulator that integrates diverse nutrient, energy, hormone, and environmental stress response signals to coordinate plants growth and development. Recent studies have uncovered the functions of TOR in plant responses to abiotic stresses.

In this study, with the aim to investigate TOR functions in response to drought stress in wheat, we generated wheat transgenic plants expressing TaTOR under the control of constitutive and drought inducible promoters. We found that enhancing the expression of TaTOR, expressed by either a constitutive promoter (UBQ) or drought-induced promoters (DREM/DEH2), significantly improved drought resistance and effectively alleviated the yield loss caused by drought stress in wheat.