Patent ID: 8158856

Claim:
A method for obtaining a plant with increased stress resistance, said method comprising a. introducing a chimeric gene into a cell of a plant to obtain a transgenic cell, said chimeric gene comprising the following operably linked DNA fragments: i. a plant-expressible promoter; ii. a DNA region coding for a plant-functional nicotinamidase enzyme having at least 95% identity to SEQ ID NO: 1; iii. a 3′ end region involved in transcription termination and polyadenylation; b. regenerating said transgenic cell to obtain a transgenic plant; c. making a population of transgenic plants comprising the chimeric gene; and d. selecting a plant from said population of transgenic plants which exhibits increased oxidative stress resistance or a reduced level of reactive oxygen species, or that maintains a high level of NADH under stress conditions when compared to a similar non-transgenic plant.