Patent 7186563 was granted and assigned to Purdue Research Foundation on March, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Methods and compositions relate to improving stress tolerance in plants including cold tolerance. HOS9 is a homeobox transcription factor that controls stress tolerance in plants by modulating the activity of a number of cold-responsive genes. Transgenic plant, cell, seed and expression vectors that include a molecule having a nucleic acid sequence derived from HOS9 confer or improve cold tolerance.