A special member of the rice SRO family, OsSRO1c, mediates responses to multiple abiotic stresses through interaction with various transcription factors.

SIMILAR TO RCD ONE (SRO) is a plant-specific gene family involved in development and abiotic stress responses. SRO proteins are characterized by containing poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase catalytic (PARP) and C-terminal RCD1-SRO-TAF4 domains, and can be classified into two groups and five subgroups on the basis of their PARP domain. Expression analysis of rice SRO genes in response to various abiotic stresses showed that OsSRO1c, a rice SRO gene which functions downstream of the stress-responsive transcription factor SNAC1, is the major stress-responsive gene in the rice SRO family. The ossro1c-1 mutant showed resistance not only to chloroplastic oxidative stress, but also to apoplastic oxidative stress. However, the ossro1c-1 mutant and artificial microRNA-OsSRO1c transgenic rice were significantly impaired in cold tolerance. When compared with the well-characterized Arabidopsis SRO protein radical-induced cell death 1 (RCD1), OsSRO1c has considerable variation in the protein sequence, and the two genes exhibit different expression profiles under abiotic stresses. Furthermore, ossro1c-1 and rcd1 showed different responses to multiple abiotic stresses. By screening an Arabidopsis transcription factor library, 29 transcription factors interacted with OsSRO1c in yeast, but only two of these transcription factors were reported to interact with RCD1, which may partly explain the different responses of the two mutants under various stresses. The data presented in this report provide important clues for further elucidating the molecular and biochemical mechanisms of OsSRO1c in mediating responses to multiple abiotic stresses.