scholarly journals A Rice Immunophilin Homolog, OsFKBP12, Is a Negative Regulator of Both Biotic and Abiotic Stress Responses

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (22) ◽  
pp. 8791
Author(s):  
Ming-Yan Cheung ◽  
Wan-Kin Auyeung ◽  
Kwan-Pok Li ◽  
Hon-Ming Lam

A class of proteins that were discovered to bind the immunosuppressant drug FK506, called FK506-binding proteins (FKBPs), are members of a sub-family of immunophilins. Although they were first identified in human, FKBPs exist in all three domains of life. In this report, a rice FKBP12 homolog was first identified as a biotic stress-related gene through suppression subtractive hybridization screening. By ectopically expressing OsFKBP12 in the heterologous model plant system, Arabidopsis thaliana, for functional characterization, OsFKBP12 was found to increase susceptibility of the plant to the pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pst DC3000). This negative regulatory role of FKBP12 in biotic stress responses was also demonstrated in the AtFKBP12-knockout mutant, which exhibited higher resistance towards Pst DC3000. Furthermore, this higher-plant FKBP12 homolog was also shown to be a negative regulator of salt tolerance. Using yeast two-hybrid tests, an ancient unconventional G-protein, OsYchF1, was identified as an interacting partner of OsFKBP12. OsYchF1 was previously reported as a negative regulator of both biotic and abiotic stresses. Therefore, OsFKBP12 probably also plays negative regulatory roles at the convergence of biotic and abiotic stress response pathways in higher plants.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Ju Lu ◽  
Huan Chen ◽  
Alex Corrion ◽  
Pai Li ◽  
Ilker Buyuk ◽  
...  

NON-RACE-SPECIFIC DISEASE RISISTANCE1 (NDR1) is a key component of plant immune signaling, required for defense against the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. Plant stress responses have overlapping molecular, physiological, and cell biology signatures, and given the central role of NDR1 during biotic stress perception and signaling, we hypothesized that NDR1 also functions in abiotic stress responses, including in a role that mediates signaling at the plasma membrane (PM) - cell wall (CW) continuum. Here, we demonstrate that NDR1 is required for the induction of drought stress responses in plants, a role that couples stress signaling in an abscisic acid-dependent manner. We show that NDR1 physically associates with the PM-localized H+-ATPases AHA1, AHA2 , and AHA5 and is required for proper regulation of H+-ATPase activity and stomatal guard cell dynamics, providing a mechanistic function of NDR1 during drought responses. In the current study, we demonstrate that NDR1 functions in signaling processes associated with both biotic and abiotic stress response pathways, a function we hypothesize represents NDR1's role in the maintenance of cellular homeostasis during stress. We propose a role for NDR1 as a core transducer of signaling between cell membrane processes and intercellular stress response activation.


Biomolecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 327
Author(s):  
Xiang-Ying Xiang ◽  
Jia Chen ◽  
Wen-Xin Xu ◽  
Jia-Rui Qiu ◽  
Li Song ◽  
...  

The resurrection plants Myrothamnus flabellifolia can survive long term severe drought and desiccation conditions and soon recover after rewatering. However, few genes related to such excellent drought tolerance and underlying molecular mechanism have been excavated. WRKY transcription factors play critical roles in biotic and abiotic stress signaling, in which WRKY70 functions as a positive regulator in biotic stress response but a negative regulator in abiotic stress signaling in Arabidopsis and some other plant species. In the present study, the functions of a dehydration-induced MfWRKY70 of M. flabellifolia participating was investigated in the model plant Arabidopsis. Our results indicated that MfWRKY70 was localized in the nucleus and could significantly increase tolerance to drought, osmotic, and salinity stresses by promoting root growth and water retention, as well as enhancing the antioxidant enzyme system and maintaining reactive oxygen species (ROS) homeostasis and membrane-lipid stability under stressful conditions. Moreover, the expression of stress-associated genes (P5CS, NCED3 and RD29A) was positively regulated in the overexpression of MfWRKY70 Arabidopsis. We proposed that MfWRKY70 may function as a positive regulator for abiotic stress responses and can be considered as a potential gene for improvement of drought and salinity tolerance in plants.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (24) ◽  
pp. 6334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lianxue Fan ◽  
Liang Xu ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
Mingjia Tang ◽  
Liwang Liu

Basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factors play crucial roles in various abiotic stress responses as well as anthocyanin accumulation. Anthocyanins are most abundant in colorful skin radish, which exhibit strong antioxidant activity that offers benefits for human health. Here, a total of 135 bZIP-encoding genes were identified from radish genome. Synteny analysis showed that 104 radish and 63 Arabidopsis bZIP genes were orthologous. Transcriptome analysis revealed that 10 RsbZIP genes exhibited high-expression levels in radish taproot (RPKM>10). Specifically, RsbZIP010 exhibited down-regulated expression under Cd, Cr and Pb stresses, whereas RsbZIP031 and RsbZIP059 showed significant down-regulation under heat and salt stresses, respectively. RT-qPCR analysis indicated that RsbZIP011 and RsbZIP102 were significantly up-regulated in the tissues of radish with high anthocyanin contents. Furthermore, the promoter sequences of 39 anthocyanin-related genes were found to contain G-box or ACE-box elements that could be recognized by bZIP family members. Taken together, several RsbZIPs might be served as critical regulators in radish taproot under Cd, Cr, Pb, heat and salt stresses. RsbZIP011 and RsbZIP102 were the potential participants in anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway of radish. These results facilitate further investigation on functional characterization of bZIP genes in response to abiotic stress and anthocyanin biosynthesis in radish.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (20) ◽  
pp. 7778
Author(s):  
Man Zhang ◽  
Yanhui Liu ◽  
Hanyang Cai ◽  
Mingliang Guo ◽  
Mengnan Chai ◽  
...  

Soybean (Glycine max), as an important oilseed crop, is constantly threatened by abiotic stress, including that caused by salinity and drought. bZIP transcription factors (TFs) are one of the largest TF families and have been shown to be associated with various environmental-stress tolerances among species; however, their function in abiotic-stress response in soybean remains poorly understood. Here, we characterized the roles of soybean transcription factor GmbZIP15 in response to abiotic stresses. The transcript level of GmbZIP15 was suppressed under salt- and drought-stress conditions. Overexpression of GmbZIP15 in soybean resulted in hypersensitivity to abiotic stress compared with wild-type (WT) plants, which was associated with lower transcript levels of stress-responsive genes involved in both abscisic acid (ABA)-dependent and ABA-independent pathways, defective stomatal aperture regulation, and reduced antioxidant enzyme activities. Furthermore, plants expressing a functional repressor form of GmbZIP15 exhibited drought-stress resistance similar to WT. RNA-seq and qRT-PCR analyses revealed that GmbZIP15 positively regulates GmSAHH1 expression and negatively regulates GmWRKY12 and GmABF1 expression in response to abiotic stress. Overall, these data indicate that GmbZIP15 functions as a negative regulator in response to salt and drought stresses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (23) ◽  
pp. 12917
Author(s):  
Naresh Vasupalli ◽  
Dan Hou ◽  
Rahul Mohan Singh ◽  
Hantian Wei ◽  
Long-Hai Zou ◽  
...  

Lignin biosynthesis enzymes form complexes for metabolic channelling during lignification and these enzymes also play an essential role in biotic and abiotic stress response. Cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD) is a vital enzyme that catalyses the reduction of aldehydes to alcohols, which is the final step in the lignin biosynthesis pathway. In the present study, we identified 49 CAD enzymes in five Bambusoideae species and analysed their phylogenetic relationships and conserved domains. Expression analysis of Moso bamboo PheCAD genes in several developmental tissues and stages revealed that among the PheCAD genes, PheCAD2 has the highest expression level and is expressed in many tissues and PheCAD1, PheCAD6, PheCAD8 and PheCAD12 were also expressed in most of the tissues studied. Co-expression analysis identified that the PheCAD2 positively correlates with most lignin biosynthesis enzymes, indicating that PheCAD2 might be the key enzyme involved in lignin biosynthesis. Further, more than 35% of the co-expressed genes with PheCADs were involved in biotic or abiotic stress responses. Abiotic stress transcriptomic data (SA, ABA, drought, and salt) analysis identified that PheCAD2, PheCAD3 and PheCAD5 genes were highly upregulated, confirming their involvement in abiotic stress response. Through yeast two-hybrid analysis, we found that PheCAD1, PheCAD2 and PheCAD8 form homo-dimers. Interestingly, BiFC and pull-down experiments identified that these enzymes form both homo- and hetero- dimers. These data suggest that PheCAD genes are involved in abiotic stress response and PheCAD2 might be a key lignin biosynthesis pathway enzyme. Moreover, this is the first report to show that three PheCAD enzymes form complexes and that the formation of PheCAD homo- and hetero- dimers might be tissue specific.


PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7383
Author(s):  
Phearom Bot ◽  
Bong-Gyu Mun ◽  
Qari Muhammad Imran ◽  
Adil Hussain ◽  
Sang-Uk Lee ◽  
...  

Plant defense against pathogens and abiotic stresses is regulated differentially by communicating signal transduction pathways in which nitric oxide (NO) plays a key role. Here, we show the biological role of Arabidopsis thaliana wall-associated kinase (AtWAK) Like10 (AtWAKL10) that exhibits greater than a 100-fold change in transcript accumulation in response to the NO donor S-nitroso-L-cysteine (CysNO), identified from high throughput RNA-seq based transcriptome analysis. Loss of AtWAKL10 function showed a similar phenotype to wild type (WT) with, however, less branching. The growth of atwakl10 on media supplemented with oxidative or nitrosative stress resulted in differential results with improved growth following treatment with CysNO but reduced growth in response to S-nitrosoglutatione (GSNO) and methyl-viologen. Further, atwakl10 plants exhibited increased susceptibility to virulent Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato (Pst) DC3000 with a significant increase in pathogen growth and decrease in PR1 transcript accumulation compared to WT overtime. Similar results were found in response to Pst DC3000 avrB, resulting in increased cell death as shown by increased electrolyte leakage in atwakl10. Furthermore, atwakl10 also showed increased reactive oxygen species accumulation following Pst DC3000 avrB inoculation. Promoter analysis of AtWAKL10 showed transcription factor (TF) binding sites for biotic and abiotic stress-related TFs. Further investigation into the role of AtWAKL10 in abiotic stresses showed that following two weeks water-withholding drought condition most of the atwakl10 plants got wilted; however, the majority (60%) of these plants recovered following re-watering. In contrast, in response to salinity stress, atwakl10 showed reduced germination under 150 mM salt stress compared to WT, suggesting that NO-induced AtWAKL10 differentially regulates different abiotic stresses. Taken together, this study further elucidates the importance of NO-induced changes in gene expression and their role in plant biotic and abiotic stress tolerance.


Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 776
Author(s):  
Shipra Kumari ◽  
Bashistha Kumar Kanth ◽  
Ju young Ahn ◽  
Jong Hwa Kim ◽  
Geung-Joo Lee

Genome-wide transcriptome analysis using RNA-Seq of Lilium longiflorum revealed valuable genes responding to biotic stresses. WRKY transcription factors are regulatory proteins playing essential roles in defense processes under environmental stresses, causing considerable losses in flower quality and production. Thirty-eight WRKY genes were identified from the transcriptomic profile from lily genotypes, exhibiting leaf blight caused by Botrytis elliptica. Lily WRKYs have a highly conserved motif, WRKYGQK, with a common variant, WRKYGKK. Phylogeny of LlWRKYs with homologous genes from other representative plant species classified them into three groups- I, II, and III consisting of seven, 22, and nine genes, respectively. Base on functional annotation, 22 LlWRKY genes were associated with biotic stress, nine with abiotic stress, and seven with others. Sixteen unique LlWRKY were studied to investigate responses to stress conditions using gene expression under biotic and abiotic stress treatments. Five genes—LlWRKY3, LlWRKY4, LlWRKY5, LlWRKY10, and LlWRKY12—were substantially upregulated, proving to be biotic stress-responsive genes in vivo and in vitro conditions. Moreover, the expression patterns of LlWRKY genes varied in response to drought, heat, cold, and different developmental stages or tissues. Overall, our study provides structural and molecular insights into LlWRKY genes for use in the genetic engineering in Lilium against Botrytis disease.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aditya Banerjee ◽  
Aryadeep Roychoudhury

WRKY proteins are emerging players in plant signaling and have been thoroughly reported to play important roles in plants under biotic stress like pathogen attack. However, recent advances in this field do reveal the enormous significance of these proteins in eliciting responses induced by abiotic stresses. WRKY proteins act as major transcription factors, either as positive or negative regulators. Specific WRKY factors which help in the expression of a cluster of stress-responsive genes are being targeted and genetically modified to induce improved abiotic stress tolerance in plants. The knowledge regarding the signaling cascade leading to the activation of the WRKY proteins, their interaction with other proteins of the signaling pathway, and the downstream genes activated by them are altogether vital for justified targeting of theWRKYgenes. WRKY proteins have also been considered to generate tolerance against multiple abiotic stresses with possible roles in mediating a cross talk between abiotic and biotic stress responses. In this review, we have reckoned the diverse signaling pattern and biological functions of WRKY proteins throughout the plant kingdom along with the growing prospects in this field of research.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document