Genome-wide analysis of the Hsf family in soybean and functional identification of GmHsf-34 involvement in drought and heat stresses

Abstract

BackgroundHigh temperature affects organism growth and metabolic activity. Heat shock transcription factors (Hsfs) are key regulators in heat shock response in eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Under high temperature conditions, Hsfs activate heat shock proteins (Hsps) by combining with heat stress elements (HSEs) in their promoters, leading to defense of heat stress. Since the first plant Hsf gene was identified in tomato, several plant Hsf family genes have been thoroughly characterized. Although soybean (Glycine max), an important oilseed crops, genome sequences have been available, the Hsf family genes in soybean have not been characterized accurately.ResultWe analyzed the Hsf genetic structures and protein function domains using the GSDS, Pfam, SMART, PredictNLS, and NetNES online tools. The genome scanning of dicots (soybean and Arabidopsis) and monocots (rice and maize) revealed that the whole-genome replication occurred twice in soybean evolution. The plant Hsfs were classified into 3 classes and 16 subclasses according to protein structure domains. The A8 and B3 subclasses existed only in dicots and the A9 and C2 occurred only in monocots. Thirty eight soybean Hsfs were systematically identified and grouped into 3 classes and 12 subclasses, and located on 15 soybean chromosomes. The promoter regions of the soybean Hsfs contained cis-elements that likely participate in drought, low temperature, and ABA stress responses. There were large differences among Hsfs based on transcriptional levels under the stress conditions. The transcriptional levels of the A1 and A2 subclass genes were extraordinarily high. In addition, differences in the expression levels occurred for each gene in the different organs and at the different developmental stages. Several genes were chosen to determine their subcellular localizations and functions. The subcellular localization results revealed that GmHsf-04, GmHsf-33, and GmHsf-34 were located in the nucleus. Overexpression of the GmHsf-34 gene improved the tolerances to drought and heat stresses in Arabidopsis plants.ConclusionsThis present investigation of the quantity, structural features, expression characteristics, subcellular localizations, and functional roles provides a scientific basis for further research on soybean Hsf functions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-1009) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Comparative transcriptome profiling of upland (VS16) and lowland (AP13) ecotypes of switchgrass

“…At least 75 up-regulated heat stress-responsive calmodulin superfamily proteins were expressed in VS16 (Table 9; Supplementary Table S11). In a recent study, the genome-wide transcriptome analysis of soybean identified various Hsfs in drought, low temperature, and ABA stress responses (Li et al 2014). The genotype AP13 exhibited 11 up-regulated Hsfs and also identified two calcium Atpase.…”

Genome wide analysis of heat shock transcription factor (HSF) family in chickpea and its comparison with Arabidopsis

“…Currently, 20 non-redundant HSFs were extracted from the initial 22 HSF sequences of chickpea (Table 1), the polypeptide lengths of chickpea HSFs varied significantly from 156 to 500 amino acids. Previously, 25, 22, 21, 38, and 13 HSFs were identified in rice, Arabidopsis, cucumber, soybean and Triticum urartu with polypeptide length ranged from 249-514, 244-495, 184-560, 213-510, and 266-567 amino acids, respectively Zhou et al, 2013;Li et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2014). Isoelectric points (IP) of chickpea HSF proteins were also diverse ranging from 4.42 to 9.25.…”

Heat shock transcription factor 3 regulates plant immune response through modulation of salicylic acid accumulation and signalling in cassava

“…Hsfs were initially characterized and cloned in yeast ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae ) (Sorger and Pelham, ), followed by various plants (Huang et al ., ; Singh et al ., ; Yabuta, ). With the genome sequencing of more and more plant species, the Hsf gene family has been thoroughly identified and characterized in alfalfa (Friedberg et al ., ), Arabidopsis thaliana (Guo et al ., ), rice ( Oryza sativa L.) (Chauhan et al ., ; Jin et al ., ; Wang et al ., ), maize (Lin et al ., ), Populus trichocarpa and Medicago truncatula (Wang et al ., ), Glycine max (Chung et al ., ), wheat (Chauhan et al ., ), Chinese cabbage (Song et al ., ), pepper ( Capsicum annuum L.) (Guo et al ., ), legume (Lin et al ., ), cotton ( Gossypium hirsutum ) (Wang et al ., ), soybean (Li et al ., ), pear ( Pyrus bretschneideri ) (Qiao et al ., ), Brassica rapa pekinensis (Huang et al ., ), Populus euphratica (Shen et al ., 2015), tea plant ( Camellia sinensis ) (Liu et al ., ), strawberry ( Fragaria vesca ) (Hu Y et al ., ) and wild Chinese grapevine ( Vitis pseudoreticulata ) (Hu et al ., ). So far, plant Hsfs have been found to be widely involved in plant development, heat stress, drought stress, salt stress and the plant disease response (Almoguera et al ., ; Cheng et al ., ; Giesguth et al ., ; Hwang et al ., ; Tanabe et al ., ; Yabuta, ).…”