Fig. 2. TaWD40-4B.1^C but not TaWD40-4B.1^T enhances drought tolerance of wheat seedlings.

a, b The expression level of TaWD40-4B.1^C and TaWD40-4B.1^T in transgenic lines of cultivars YM20 (a) and SR3 (b) (n = 4 biologically independent samples; P = 1.45 × 10⁻¹⁴ in a and 1.07 × 10⁻¹¹ in b). c, d The water-withholding assay of the transgenic lines of YM20 (c) and SR3 (d). e, h The rates of wilting area in the leaves of wheat seedlings after water-withholding (n = 9 biologically independent samples; P = 5.26 × 10⁻¹¹ in e and 1.08 × 10⁻²³ in h). f, i The fresh weight of shoots of wheat seedlings after water-withholding (n = 9 biologically independent samples; P = 4.29 × 10⁻¹⁵ in f and 8.09 × 10⁻²¹ in i). g, j The relative water content of wheat seedlings after water-withholding (n present in the panels; P = 9.11 × 10⁻²³ in g and 5.87 × 10⁻⁵⁵ in j). In a, b, data are shown as mean and standard deviation; In e–j, the box indicates the range from lower to upper quartiles, and the bar ranges the minimum to maximum observations. The significance of the difference is calculated with a one-way ANOVA analysis–Tukey comparison and the columns labeled without the same alphabet are significantly different (P < 0.05, two-sided). SR3 and YM20: two cultivars carrying TaWD40-4B.1^C and TaWD40-4B.1^T, respectively; OE-T: TaWD40-4B.1^T overexpression lines; OE-C: TaWD40-4B.1^C overexpression lines; RNAi: TaWD40-4B.1^C / TaWD40-4B.1^T RNAi lines. Source data are provided as a Source data file.