Fecha de publicación: -- Fuente: PubMed "rice" Plant Physiol Biochem. 2026 Sep 8;238:111730. doi: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2026.111730. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTSalt stress is one of the major abiotic factors limiting rice growth, development and yield. In this study, a member of the AP2/ERF transcription factor family, OsERFSR1, was cloned from rice. Overexpression of OsERFSR1 (OE) significantly reduced salt tolerance, with survival rates of 53.2% compared with 70.2% in wild-type (WT) plants, whereas CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout (ko) markedly enhanced salt tolerance, with survival rates of 54.6% compared with 28.2% in WT, suggesting that OsERFSR1 acts as a negative regulator of salt stress tolerance. Physiological analyses revealed that, under salt stress, the OE lines accumulated significantly higher levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), but exhibited lower activities of antioxidant enzymes and slower accumulation of osmotic regulatory substances compared with WT plants. Conversely, the ko lines displayed opposite physiological trends. Transcriptome analysis identified differentially expressed genes among the three genotypes that were mainly enriched in tryptophan metabolism and plant hormone signal transduction pathways. Taken together, our findings suggest that OsERFSR1 is correlated with salt tolerance in rice, and may modulate this process through tryptophan metabolism and hormone signaling pathways, thereby affecting the downstream antioxidant defense system. This study provides a promising candidate target gene for improving salt tolerance in rice through gene editing approaches.PMID:42721655 | DOI:10.1016/j.plaphy.2026.111730