CBF transcription factors involved in the cold response of Camellia japonica (Naidong)

Abstract

CBFs belong to the ERF subfamily of the AP2 supergene family and often play an important role in the cold acclimation of temperate plants. However, the role of CBFs in Camellia japonica (Naidong), the only Camellia japonica population found in the temperate zones of China, remains unclear. It is very important to study the genetic composition of C. japonica (Naidong) to adapt to low temperature for Camellia species. Using full-length transcriptome data, we identified four CjCBF genes that respond to cold stress and analyzed their evolutionary relationships, domains, and expression patterns. The phylogeny of CBFs of 19 angiosperms divided the genes into three categories, and the four CjCBFs belong to a small subcluster. The strong response of CjCBF1 to cold treatment and its sustained high level of expression indicated that it plays an important role in the process of cold acclimation. A yeast two-hybrid assay revealed an interaction between CjCBF1, CjCBF2, and CjCBF5, and subcellular localization confirmed this finding. The expression of CjCBFs was tissue-specific: CBF1 was mainly expressed in leaves, and CBF3 was mainly expressed in stem. The responses of the four CjCBFs to drought and high temperature and the effect of light were also characterized. Our study provides new insight into the role of CBFs in the cold response in C. japonica (Naidong).

Overexpression of LtKNOX1 from Lilium tsingtauense in Nicotiana benthamiana affects the development of leaf morphology

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Cold adaptation strategies in plants—An emerging role of epigenetics and antifreeze proteins to engineer cold resilient plants

“…CBFs are the transcription factor belonging to the superfamily ethylene-responsive element-binding factors and APETALA2 (AP2/ERF), which recognize RCCGAC, a c-repeat dehydration-responsive element (CRT/DRE) (Akhtar et al, 2012;Zhu et al, 2021). CBFs have signature sequences, PKK/ RPAGRxKFxETRHP and DSAWR, distinguishing them from other superfamily members (Canella et al, 2010;Fan et al, 2021). Out of four CBF genes found in the Arabidopsis genome, three CBF genes (CBF1, CBF2, CBF3) are induced by cold, whereas CBF4 is induced by drought and salt stress.…”

Multi-Approach Analysis Reveals Pathways of Cold Tolerance Divergence in Camellia japonica

“…The candidate genes related to the photosynthesis, ribosome, and plant hormone signaling pathways were screened. RT-qPCR of the 10 genes was carried out using the same RNA used for transcriptomic sequencing, with the same operational approaches as described before (Fan et al, 2021b). The NADPH gene was used as the reference gene (Pan et al, 2020).…”