Lijuan Chen

1 Rice Research Institute, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China
2 The Key Laboratory for Crop Production and Smart Agriculture of Yunnan Province, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China
3 State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-Resources in Yunnan, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China
4 Xichang University, Xichang, 615013, Sichuan, China

Author    Correspondence author
Molecular Plant Breeding, 2025, Vol. 16, No. 2   
Received: 10 Feb., 2025    Accepted: 13 Mar., 2025    Published: 21 Mar., 2025

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.

Water scarcity is a major limiting factor in agriculture, significantly affecting crop productivity and food security. As a major food crop, rice is particularly sensitive to water stress, so it is of great significance to understand its transcriptional regulation and gene network under such conditions. This review aims to systemic synthesis the transcriptional response and gene network of rice under water deficit conditions to reveal its drought resistance mechanism. We summerized the studies on functional analysis of key drought resistance genes and validation of candidate genes using CRISPR-Cas9 technology. Additionally, the roles of abscisic acid (ABA) and other hormones in gene regulation has also been explored. Despite the inherent challenges of omics data analysis, advances in genomics and transcriptomics technology support recent research. The findings have significant practical implications for cultivating drought-resistant rice, and provide potential biotechnological applications. Future research should focus on emerging technologies and innovative strategies to further improve the resilience of crops to water scarcity.

Rice; Water deficit; Transcriptional regulation; Gene networks; Drought tolerance