EsDREB2B, a novel truncated DREB2-type transcription factor in the desert legume Eremosparton songoricum, enhances tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses in yeast and transgenic tobacco

BMC Plant Biology

Research Article

Andrew J Wood¹  Daoyuan Zhang²  Yucheng Wang²  Yuanming Zhang²  Haiyan Li³  Xiaoshuang Li⁴ 

[1] Department of Plant Biology, Southern Illinois University, 62901-6899, Carbondale, IL, USA;Key Laboratory of Biogeography and Bioresource in Arid Land, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 830011, Xinjiang, Urumqi, China;Key Laboratory of Biogeography and Bioresource in Arid Land, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 830011, Xinjiang, Urumqi, China;University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China;Key Laboratory of Biogeography and Bioresource in Arid Land, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 830011, Xinjiang, Urumqi, China;University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China;Department of Plant Biology, Southern Illinois University, 62901-6899, Carbondale, IL, USA;

关键词: Cold;    DREB;    Drought;    Heat;    Proline;    Salt;    Stress;    Transcript accumulation;    Transgenic tobacco;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2229-14-44

 received in 2013-09-13, accepted in 2014-02-05,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundDehydration-Responsive Element-Binding Protein2 (DREB2) is a transcriptional factor which regulates the expression of several stress-inducible genes. DREB2-type proteins are particularly important in plant responses to drought, salt and heat. DREB2 genes have been identified and characterized in a variety of plants, and DREB2 genes are promising candidate genes for the improvement of stress tolerance in plants. However, little is known about these genes in plants adapted to water-limiting environments.ResultsIn this study, we describe the characterization of EsDREB2B, a novel DREB2B gene identified from the desert plant Eremosparton songoricum. Phylogenetic analysis and motif prediction indicate that EsDREB2B encodes a truncated DREB2 polypeptide that belongs to a legume-specific DREB2 group. In E. songoricum, EsDREB2B transcript accumulation was induced by a variety of abiotic stresses, including drought, salinity, cold, heat, heavy metal, mechanical wounding, oxidative stress and exogenous abscisic acid (ABA) treatment. Consistent with the predicted role as a transcription factor, EsDREB2B was targeted to the nucleus of onion epidermal cells and exhibited transactivation activity of a GAL4-containing reporter gene in yeast. In transgenic yeast, overexpression of EsDREB2B increased tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses. Our findings indicate that EsDREB2B can enhance stress tolerance in other plant species. Heterologous expression of EsDREB2B in tobacco showed improved tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses, and the transgenic plants exhibited no reduction in foliar growth. We observed that EsDREB2B is a functional DREB2-orthologue able to influence the physiological and biochemical response of transgenic tobacco to stress.ConclusionsBased upon these findings, EsDREB2B encodes an abiotic stress-inducible, transcription factor which confers abiotic stress-tolerance in yeast and transgenic tobacco.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Li et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.