Identification and Expression Analyses of SBP-Box Genes Reveal Their Involvement in Abiotic Stress and Hormone Response in Tea Plant (Camellia sinensis)

The SQUAMOSA promoter binding protein (SBP)-box gene family is a plant-specific transcription factor family. This family plays a crucial role in plant growth and development. In this study, 20 SBP-box genes were identified in the tea plant genome and classified into six groups. The genes in each group shared similar exon-intron structures and motif positions. Expression pattern analyses in five different tissues demonstrated that expression in the buds and leaves was higher than that in other tissues. The cis-elements and expression patterns of the CsSBP genes suggested that the CsSBP genes play active roles in abiotic stress responses; these responses may depend on the abscisic acid (ABA), gibberellic acid (GA), and methyl jasmonate (MeJA) signaling pathways. Our work provides a comprehensive understanding of the CsSBP family and will aid in genetically improving tea plants.

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Cytokinin at the Crossroads of Abiotic Stress Signalling Pathways

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms19082450 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 19 (8) ◽

pp. 2450 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Jaroslav Pavlů ◽

Jan Novák ◽

Vladěna Koukalová ◽

Markéta Luklová ◽

Břetislav Brzobohatý ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Abiotic Stress ◽

Stress Responses ◽

Plant Hormone ◽

Expression Patterns ◽

Signalling Pathways ◽

Plant Growth And Development ◽

Development Processes ◽

Stress Related Genes ◽

Nitrogen Phosphorus ◽

Diverse Plant

Cytokinin is a multifaceted plant hormone that plays major roles not only in diverse plant growth and development processes, but also stress responses. We summarize knowledge of the roles of its metabolism, transport, and signalling in responses to changes in levels of both macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur) and micronutrients (boron, iron, silicon, selenium). We comment on cytokinin’s effects on plants’ xenobiotic resistance, and its interactions with light, temperature, drought, and salinity signals. Further, we have compiled a list of abiotic stress-related genes and demonstrate that their expression patterns overlap with those of cytokinin metabolism and signalling genes.

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CsLAZY1 mediates shoot gravitropism and branch angle in tea plants (Camellia sinensis)

BMC Plant Biology ◽

10.1186/s12870-021-03044-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Xiaobo Xia ◽

Xiaozeng Mi ◽

Ling Jin ◽

Rui Guo ◽

Junyan Zhu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Plant Architecture ◽

Sequence Similarity ◽

Expression Patterns ◽

Tea Plant ◽

Plant Genome ◽

Gravity Inversion ◽

High Sequence Similarity ◽

Branch Angle ◽

Shoot Gravitropism ◽

Tea Plants

Abstract Background Branch angle is a pivotal component of tea plant architecture. Tea plant architecture not only affects tea quality and yield but also influences the efficiency of automatic tea plant pruning. However, the molecular mechanism controlling the branch angle, which is an important aspect of plant architecture, is poorly understood in tea plants. Results In the present study, three CsLAZY genes were identified from tea plant genome data through sequence homology analysis. Phylogenetic tree displayed that the CsLAZY genes had high sequence similarity with LAZY genes from other plant species, especially those in woody plants. The expression patterns of the three CsLAZYs were surveyed in eight tissues. We further verified the expression levels of the key CsLAZY1 transcript in different tissues among eight tea cultivars and found that CsLAZY1 was highly expressed in stem. Subcellular localization analysis showed that the CsLAZY1 protein was localized in the plasma membrane. CsLAZY1 was transferred into Arabidopsis thaliana to investigate its potential role in regulating shoot development. Remarkably, the CsLAZY1 overexpressed plants responded more effectively than the wild-type plants to a gravity inversion treatment under light and dark conditions. The results indicate that CsLAZY1 plays an important role in regulating shoot gravitropism in tea plants. Conclusions The results provide important evidence for understanding the functions of CsLAZY1 in regulating shoot gravitropism and influencing the stem branch angle in tea plants. This report identifies CsLAZY1 as a promising gene resource for the improvement of tea plant architecture.

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Genome-wide identification, characterization, and expression analysis of tea plant autophagy-related genes (CsARGs) reveals diverse roles during development and abiotic stress

10.21203/rs.3.rs-57425/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Wenjun Qian ◽

Huan Wang ◽

ZhaoTang Ding ◽

Mengjie Gou ◽

Jianhui Hu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Abiotic Stress ◽

Expression Analysis ◽

Stress Responses ◽

Cold Resistance ◽

Treatment Time ◽

Resistance Breeding ◽

Tea Plant ◽

Specific Expression ◽

Genome Wide ◽

Tea Plants

Abstract Background Autophagy, meaning ‘self-eating’, is required for degradation and recycling of cytoplasmic constituents under stressful or non-stressful conditions, thereby contributing to maintaining cellular homeostasis, delaying aged and longevity in eukaryotes. So far, the functions of autophagy have been intensively studied in yeast, mammals and model plants, but few studies have focused on economic crops, especially for tea plants, the roles of autophagy in coping with different environment stimuluses have not yet been detailed. Therefore, exploring the functions of autophagy related genes in tea plant would contribute to further understanding the mechanism of autophagy in response to stresses in woody plants. Results Here, we totally identified 35 CsARGs in tea plant. Each CsARG is highly conserved with its homologues stemmed from other plant species, except for CsATG14. Tissue-specific expression analysis revealed that the abundances of CsARGs were varied with different tissues, but CsATG8c/i showed a certain degree of tissue specificity, respectively. Under hormones and abiotic stress conditions, most of CsARGs were up-regulated at different treatment time points. In addition, the transcriptions of 10 CsARGs were higher in cold-resistance cultivar ‘Longjing43’ than the cold-susceptible cultivar ‘Damianbai’ during CA periods, however, CsATG101 showed a contrary tendency. Conclusions We comprehensively analyzed the bioinformatics and physiological roles of CsARGs in tea plant, and these results provide the basis for deepen exploring the molecular mechanism of autophagy involved in tea plant growth and development and stress responses. Meanwhile, some CsARGs would be served as putative molecular markers for cold-resistance breeding of tea plant in future.

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Genome-Wide Analysis of Poplar SQUAMOSA-Promoter-Binding Protein (SBP) Family under Salt Stress

Forests ◽

10.3390/f12040413 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 413

Author(s):

Qing Guo ◽

Li Li ◽

Kai Zhao ◽

Wenjing Yao ◽

Zihan Cheng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Salt Stress ◽

Abiotic Stress ◽

Stress Responses ◽

Growth And Development ◽

Binding Protein ◽

Gene Segment ◽

Gene Expression Pattern ◽

Genome Wide Analysis ◽

Genome Wide ◽

Squamosa Promoter Binding Protein

SQUAMOSA promoter binding protein (SBP) is a kind of plant-specific transcription factor, which plays a crucial role in stress responses and plant growth and development by activating and inhibiting the transcription of multiple target genes. In this study, a total of 30 SBP genes were identified from Populus trichocarpa genome and randomly distributed on 16 chromosomes in poplar. According to phylogenetic analysis, the PtSBPs can be divided into six categories, and 14 out of the genes belong to VI. Furthermore, the SBP genes in VI were proved to have a targeting relationship with miR156. The homeopathic element analysis showed that the promoters of poplar SBP genes mainly contain the elements involved in growth and development, abiotic stress and hormone response. In addition, there existed 10 gene segment duplication events in the SBP gene duplication analysis. Furthermore, there were four poplar and Arabidopsis orthologous gene pairs among the poplar SBP members. What is more, poplar SBP gene family has diverse gene expression pattern under salt stress. As many as nine SBP members were responding to high salt stress and six members possibly participated in growth development and abiotic stress. Yeast two-hybrid experiments indicated that PtSBPs can form heterodimers to interact in the transcriptional regulatory networks. The genome-wide analysis of poplar SBP family will contribute to function characterization of SBP genes in woody plants.

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Molecular Identification and Characterization of Hydroxycinnamoyl Transferase in Tea Plants (Camellia sinensis L.)

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms19123938 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 19 (12) ◽

pp. 3938 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Chi-Hui Sun ◽

Chin-Ying Yang ◽

Jason Tzen

Keyword(s):

Abiotic Stress ◽

Amino Acid ◽

Camellia Sinensis ◽

Polymerase Chain Reaction Analysis ◽

Coffea Canephora ◽

Tea Plant ◽

Amino Acid Sequences ◽

Hibiscus Cannabinus ◽

Expression Level ◽

Tea Plants

Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) contains abundant secondary metabolites, which are regulated by numerous enzymes. Hydroxycinnamoyl transferase (HCT) is involved in the biosynthesis pathways of polyphenols and flavonoids, and it can catalyze the transfer of hydroxyconnamoyl coenzyme A to substrates such as quinate, flavanol glycoside, or anthocyanins, thus resulting in the production of chlorogenic acid or acylated flavonol glycoside. In this study, the CsHCT gene was cloned from the Chin-Shin Oolong tea plant, and its protein functions and characteristics were analyzed. The full-length cDNA of CsHCT contains 1311 base pairs and encodes 436 amino acid sequences. Amino acid sequence was highly conserved with other HCTs from Arabidopsis thaliana, Populus trichocarpa, Hibiscus cannabinus, and Coffea canephora. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that CsHCT is highly expressed in the stem tissues of both tea plants and seedlings. The CsHCT expression level was relatively high at high altitudes. The abiotic stress experiment suggested that low temperature, drought, and high salinity induced CsHCT transcription. Furthermore, the results of hormone treatments indicated that abscisic acid (ABA) induced a considerable increase in the CsHCT expression level. This may be attributed to CsHCT involvement in abiotic stress and ABA signaling pathways.

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Functional Analyses of Flavonol Synthase Genes From Camellia sinensis Reveal Their Roles in Anther Development

Frontiers in Plant Science ◽

10.3389/fpls.2021.753131 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Yufeng Shi ◽

Xiaolan Jiang ◽

Linbo Chen ◽

Wei-Wei Li ◽

Sanyan Lai ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Phenolic Compounds ◽

Developmental Stages ◽

Expression Patterns ◽

Reproductive Organs ◽

Tea Plant ◽

Functional Verification ◽

Metabolic Characteristics ◽

Metabolic Properties ◽

Tea Plants ◽

Functional Analyses

Flavonoids, including flavonol derivatives, are the main astringent compounds of tea and are beneficial to human health. Many researches have been conducted to comprehensively identify and characterize the phenolic compounds in the tea plant. However, the biological function of tea flavonoids is not yet understood, especially those accumulated in floral organs. In this study, the metabolic characteristics of phenolic compounds in different developmental stages of flower buds and various parts of the tea flower were investigated by using metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses. Targeted metabolomic analysis revealed varying accumulation patterns of different phenolic polyphenol compounds during flowering; moreover, the content of flavonol compounds gradually increased as the flowers opened. Petals and stamens were the main sites of flavone and flavonol accumulation. Compared with those of fertile flowers, the content of certain flavonols, such as kaempferol derivatives, in anthers of hybrid sterile flowers was significantly low. Transcriptomic analysis revealed different expression patterns of genes in the same gene family in tea flowers. The CsFLSb gene was significantly increased during flowering and was highly expressed in anthers. Compared with fertile flowers, CsFLSb was significantly downregulated in sterile flowers. Further functional verification of the three CsFLS genes indicated that CsFLSb caused an increase in flavonol content in transgenic tobacco flowers and that CsFLSa acted in leaves. Taken together, this study highlighted the metabolic properties of phenolic compounds in tea flowers and determined how the three CsFLS genes have different functions in the vegetative and reproductive organs of tea plants. Furthermore, CsFLSb could regulated flavonol biosynthesis in tea flowers, thus influencing fertility. This research is of great significance for balancing the reproductive growth and vegetative growth of tea plants.

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Genome-wide identification of citrus calmodulin-like genes and their expression in response to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi colonization and drought

Canadian Journal of Plant Science ◽

10.1139/cjps-2020-0160 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Bo Shu ◽

YaChao Xie ◽

Fei Zhang ◽

Dejian Zhang ◽

Chunyan Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Abiotic Stress ◽

Drought Stress ◽

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi ◽

Stress Responses ◽

Mycorrhizal Fungi ◽

Expression Patterns ◽

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal ◽

Biotic And Abiotic Stress ◽

Genome Wide ◽

A Genome

Calmodulin-like (CML) proteins represent a diverse family of protein in plants, and play significant roles in biotic and abiotic stress responses. However, the involvement of citrus CMLs in plant responses to drought stress (abiotic stress) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) colonization remain relatively unknown. We characterized the citrus CML genes by analyzing the EF-hand domains and a genome-wide search, and identified a total of 38 such genes, distributed across at least nine chromosomes. Six tandem duplication clusters were observed in the CsCMLs, and 12 CsCMLs exhibited syntenic relationships with Arabidopsis thaliana CMLs. Gene expression analysis showed that 29 CsCMLs were expressed in the roots, and exhibited differential expression patterns. The regulation of CsCMLs expression was not consistent with the cis-elements identified in their promoters. CsCML2, 3, and 5 were upregulated in response to drought stress, and AMF colonization repressed the expression of CsCML7, 9, 12, 13,20, 27, 28, and 35,and induced that of CsCML1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18, 25, 30, 33, and 37. Furthermore, AMF colonization and drought stress exerted a synergistic effect, evident from the enhanced repression of CsCML7, 9, 12, 13, 27, 28, and 35 and enhanced expression of CsCML2, 3, and 5 under AMF colonization and drought stress. The present study provides valuable insights into the CsCML gene family and its responses to AMF colonization and drought stress.

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Low Caffeine Content in Novel Grafted Tea with Camellia sinensis as Scions and Camellia oleifera as Stocks

Natural Product Communications ◽

10.1177/1934578x1501000522 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 1934578X1501000 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Wei-Wei Deng ◽

Min Li ◽

Chen-Chen Gu ◽

Da-Xiang Li ◽

Lin-Long Ma ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Camellia Sinensis ◽

Expression Patterns ◽

Tea Plant ◽

Protein Accumulation ◽

Tea Leaves ◽

Qrt Pcr ◽

Caffeine Content ◽

Caffeine Synthase ◽

Specificity And Sensitivity ◽

Tea Plants

Caffeine, a purine alkaloid, is a major secondary metabolite in tea leaves. The demand for low caffeine tea is increasing in recent years, especially for health reasons. We report a novel grafted tea material with low caffeine content. The grafted tea plant had Camellia sinensis as scions and C. oleifera as stocks. The content of purine alkaloids was determined in the leaves of one-year-old grafted tea plants by HPLC. We also characterized caffeine synthase (CS), a key enzyme involved in caffeine biosynthesis in tea plants, at the expression level. The expression patterns of CS were examined in grafted and control leaves by Western blot, using a self-prepared polyclonal antibody with high specificity and sensitivity. The expression of related genes ( TCS1, tea caffeine synthase gene, GenBank accession No. AB031280; sAMS, SAM synthetase gene, AJ277206; TIDH, IMP dehydrogenase gene, EU106658) in the caffeine biosynthetic pathway was investigated by qRT-PCR. HPLC showed that the caffeine content was only 38% as compared with the non-grafted tea leaves. Immunoblotting analysis showed that CS protein decreased by half in the leaves of grafted tea plants. qRT-PCR revealed no significant changes in the expression of two genes in the upstream pathway ( sAMS and TIDH), while the expression of TCS1 was greatly decreased (50%). Taken together, these data revealed that the low caffeine content in the grafted tea leaves is due to low TCS1 expression and CS protein accumulation.

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Preliminary Classification of the ABC Transporter Family in Betula halophila and Expression Patterns in Response to Exogenous Phytohormones and Abiotic Stresses

Forests ◽

10.3390/f10090722 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (9) ◽

pp. 722

Author(s):

An ◽

Ma ◽

Du ◽

Yu ◽

Li ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Abiotic Stress ◽

Abc Transporters ◽

Stress Responses ◽

Phylogenetic Analyses ◽

Expression Patterns ◽

Pcr Analysis ◽

Structural Domain ◽

Transcriptional Responses ◽

Hormone Transport ◽

Transporter Family

ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters comprise a transport system superfamily which is ubiquitous in eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. In plants, ABC transporters play important roles in hormone transport and stress tolerance. In this study, 15 BhABC transporters encoded by genes identified from the transcriptome of Betula halophila were categorized into four subfamilies (ABCB, ABCF, ABCG, and ABCI) using structural domain and phylogenetic analyses. Upon B. halophila exposure to exogenous phytohormones and abiotic stressors, gene expression patterns and transcriptional responses for each subfamily of genes were obtained using semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis. The results demonstrated that expression of most genes belonging to ABCB and ABCG subfamilies changed in response to exogenous phytohormone exposures and abiotic stress. These results suggest that BhABC genes may participate in hormone transport and that their expression may be influenced by ABA-dependent signaling pathways involved in abiotic stress responses to various stressors.

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