Protein kinase polynucleotides and polypeptides for increasing abiotic stress tolerance, yield, biomass, growth rate, and/or vigor in a plant

#The ASCII file, entitled 76373SequenceListing.txt, created on Jan. 9, 2019, comprising 15,427,313 bytes, submitted concurrently with the filing of this application is incorporated herein by reference.

#The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to isolated polypeptides and polynucleotides, nucleic acid constructs comprising same, transgenic plants expressing same and methods of using same for increasing abiotic stress tolerance (ABST), water use efficiency (WUE), yield (e.g., grain quantity and/or quality), biomass, oil content, growth rate, vigor, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and/or fertilizer use efficiency (FUE) of a plant.

#The ever-increasing world population and the decreasing availability in arable land for agriculture affect the yield of plants and plant-related products. The global shortage of water supply, desertification, abiotic stress (ABS) conditions (e.g., salinity, drought, flood, suboptimal temperature and toxic chemical pollution), and/or limited nitrogen and fertilizer sources cause substantial damage to agricultural plants such as major alterations in the plant metabolism, cell death, and decreases in plant growth and crop productivity.

#Some embodiments of the invention are herein described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings. With specific reference now to the drawings in detail, it is stressed that the particulars shown are by way of example and for purposes of illustrative discussion of embodiments of the invention. In this regard, the description taken with the drawings makes apparent to those skilled in the art how embodiments of the invention may be practiced.

#In the drawings:

#FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of the modified pGI binary plasmid containing the new At6669 promoter (SEQ ID NO:8741) and the GUSintron (pQYN_6669) used for expressing the isolated polynucleotide sequences of the invention. RB—T-DNA right border; LB—T-DNA left border; MCS—Multiple cloning site; RE—any restriction enzyme; NOS pro=nopaline synthase promoter; NPT-II=neomycin phosphotransferase gene; NOS ter=nopaline synthase terminator; Poly-A signal (polyadenylation signal); GUSintron—the GUS reporter gene (coding sequence and intron). The isolated polynucleotide sequences of the invention were cloned into the vector while replacing the GUSintron reporter gene.

#The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to isolated polypeptides and polynucleotides, nucleic acid constructs comprising the isolated polypeptides, transgenic plants expressing same and methods of using same for increasing abiotic stress tolerance (ABST), water use efficiency (WUE), yield (e.g., grain quantity and/or quality), biomass, oil content, growth rate, vigor, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and/or fertilizer use efficiency (FUE) of a plant.

#Before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not necessarily limited in its application to the details set forth in the following description or exemplified by the Examples. The invention is capable of other embodiments or of being practiced or carried out in various ways.

#The present inventors have identified novel polypeptides and polynucleotides which can be used to increase abiotic stress tolerance, yield, biomass, growth rate, vigor, oil content, fiber yield, fiber quality, and/or nitrogen use efficiency of a plant.