Genome-Wide Analysis of the AP2/ERF Gene Family in Physic Nut and Overexpression of the JcERF011 Gene in Rice Increased Its Sensitivity to Salinity Stress

Abstract

The AP2/ERF transcription factors play crucial roles in plant growth, development and responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. A total of 119 AP2/ERF genes (JcAP2/ERFs) have been identified in the physic nut genome; they include 16 AP2, 4 RAV, 1 Soloist, and 98 ERF genes. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that physic nut AP2 genes could be divided into 3 subgroups, while ERF genes could be classed into 11 groups or 43 subgroups. The AP2/ERF genes are non-randomly distributed across the 11 linkage groups of the physic nut genome and retain many duplicates which arose from ancient duplication events. The expression patterns of several JcAP2/ERF duplicates in the physic nut showed differences among four tissues (root, stem, leaf, and seed), and 38 JcAP2/ERF genes responded to at least one abiotic stressor (drought, salinity, phosphate starvation, and nitrogen starvation) in leaves and/or roots according to analysis of digital gene expression tag data. The expression of JcERF011 was downregulated by salinity stress in physic nut roots. Overexpression of the JcERF011 gene in rice plants increased its sensitivity to salinity stress. The increased expression levels of several salt tolerance-related genes were impaired in the JcERF011-overexpressing plants under salinity stress.

Genome-wide identification, molecular evolution, and expression analysis provide new insights into the APETALA2/ethylene responsive factor (AP2/ERF) superfamily in Dimocarpus longan Lour

“…7; Additional file 7: Table S5). The most and least types of AS events among these four stage were intron retention (103) and exon skipping (15), respectively. Nineteen of the 125 DlAP2/ERF genes had AS events in the NEC stage, followed by 15 genes in the GE stage, 14 in the IcpEC stage, and 11 in the EC stage ( Fig.…”

“…Moreover, several ERF subfamily members have been reported to play vital roles in metabolite biosynthesis [11]. DREB subfamily members bind to the dehydration-responsive element/Crepeat (DRE/CRT) and are considered to the main regulators of plant abiotic stresses, including drought [12], cold [13], heat [14], and salt stress [15]. Several DREB subfamily genes were also reported to participate in abscisic acid (ABA)-mediated gene expression [16].…”

Multiple regulatory roles of AP2/ERF transcription factor in angiosperm

“…All the time, regulatory mechanism of AP2/ERF TF in these fields were wide-spread studies by many scientists and their research teams, and increasing experimental evidence was exploited to elucidate the detailed roles in each field (Guo and Ecker 2004; Liu et al 2014; Pré et al 2008; Taketa et al 2008; Tang et al 2016; Xiao et al 2013; Yin et al 2016). Herein, research advance of AP2/ERF TF was reviewed in plant, and the doubtful viewpoints were also discussed.…”

Divergent Expression Patterns in Two Vernicia Species Revealed the Potential Role of the Hub Gene VmAP2/ERF036 in Resistance to Fusarium oxysporum in Vernicia montana

“…The number of genes in the AP2/ERF family from A. thaliana and physic nut was reported by Nakano et al [5] and Tang et al [25]. DREB: dehydration-responsive element-binding; RAV: related to abscisic acid insensitive 3 (ABI3)/ VP1.…”

“…Based on the essential role of the AP2/ERF superfamily in regulating stress responses and developmental processes in plants, various studies have been performed to identify and investigate this family in plants, including Arabidopsis [5], rice [5], castor bean [21], Chinese cabbage [22], grape [23], poplar [24], physic nut [25], Medicago truncatula [26], Moso bamboo [27], banana [6] and chickpea and pigeonpea [28]. ERF proteins involved in defense against pathogen infection have also been extensively documented [1,2,18].…”