The LATERAL ORGAN BOUNDARIES DOMAIN (LBD)-containing genes are commonly present in plants and function in lateral organ development. The researchers identified LBD40 (Solyc02g085910), which belongs to the LBD family of genes in tomato and is predominant in roots and fruits.

To know more about the SlLBD40 function, the researchers overexpressed the genes and CRISPR-Cas9 mediated knockout transgenic tomato plants were generated. Results showed that SlLBD40 overexpressing plants exhibited severe wilting while knockout of SlLBD40 improved the drought tolerance of tomato.

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