MfbHLH38, a Myrothamnus flabellifolia bHLH transcription factor, confers tolerance to drought and salinity stresses in A
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
MfbHLH38, a Myrothamnus flabellifolia bHLH transcription factor, confers tolerance to drought and salinity stresses in Arabidopsis Jia-Rui Qiu1, Zhuo Huang1* , Xiang-Ying Xiang1, Wen-Xin Xu1, Jia-Tong Wang1, Jia Chen1, Li Song1, Yao Xiao1, Xi Li1, Jun Ma1, Shi-Zhen Cai1, Ling-Xia Sun1 and Cai-Zhong Jiang2,3
Abstract Background: The basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins, a large transcription factors family, are involved in plant growth and development, and defensive response to various environmental stresses. The resurrection plant Myrothamnus flabellifolia is known for its extremely strong drought tolerance, but few bHLHs taking part in abiotic stress response have been unveiled in M. flabellifolia. Results: In the present research, we cloned and characterized a dehydration-inducible gene, MfbHLH38, from M. flabellifolia. The MfbHLH38 protein is localized in the nucleus, where it may act as a transcription factor. Heterologous expression of MfbHLH38 in Arabidopsis improved the tolerance to drought and salinity stresses, as determined by the studies on physiological indexes, such as contents of chlorophyll, malondialdehyde (MDA), proline (Pro), soluble protein, and soluble sugar, water loss rate of detached leaves, reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, as well as antioxidant enzyme activities. Besides, MfbHLH38 overexpression increased the sensitivity of stomatal closure to mannitol and abscisic acid (ABA), improved ABA level under drought stress, and elevated the expression of genes associated with ABA biosynthesis and ABA responding, sucha as NCED3, P5CS, and RD29A. Conclusions: Our results presented evidence that MfbHLH38 enhanced tolerance to drought and salinity stresses in Arabidopsis through increasing water retention ability, regulating osmotic balance, decreasing stress-induced oxidation damage, and possibly participated in ABA-dependent stress-responding pathway. Keywords: bHLH transcription factor, Abiotic stress tolerance, Abscisic acid (ABA), Myrothamnus flabellifolia
Background Plants, as sessile species, are vulnerable to changing environmental conditions, and the increasing drought and salinity stresses usually restrict the development and growth of plants through disturbing ion homeostasis, reducing nutrient uptake, and exacerbating oxidation * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 College of Landscape Architecture, Sichuan Agricultural University, Wenjiang 611130, Sichuan, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
stress [1]. To adapt to these disadvantaged conditions of environmental stresses, plants have formed a variety of complex coping mechanisms during the evolution process. Signal transduction and transcription regulation play important roles in the sophisticated biochemistry and molecular regulatory networks when plants replying to different stresses. Abscisic acid (ABA) as a ubiquitous plant hormone is involved in the network of stress signaling responding to environmental stimulation and plays an irreplaceable
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