SALT-RESPONSIVE ERF1 Regulates Reactive Oxygen Species-Dependent Signaling during the Initial Response to Salt Stress in Rice

Abstract

Early detection of salt stress is vital for plant survival and growth. Still, the molecular processes controlling early salt stress perception and signaling are not fully understood. Here, we identified SALT-RESPONSIVE ERF1 (SERF1), a rice (Oryza sativa) transcription factor (TF) gene that shows a root-specific induction upon salt and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) treatment. Loss of SERF1 impairs the salt-inducible expression of genes encoding members of a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade and salt tolerance-mediating TFs. Furthermore, we show that SERF1-dependent genes are H 2 O 2 responsive and demonstrate that SERF1 binds to the promoters of MAPK KINASE KINASE6 (MAP3K6), MAPK5, DEHYDRATION-RESPONSIVE ELEMENT BINDING2A (DREB2A), and ZINC FINGER PROTEIN179 (ZFP179) in vitro and in vivo. SERF1 also directly induces its own gene expression. In addition, SERF1 is a phosphorylation target of MAPK5, resulting in enhanced transcriptional activity of SERF1 toward its direct target genes. In agreement, plants deficient for SERF1 are more sensitive to salt stress compared with the wild type, while constitutive overexpression of SERF1 improves salinity tolerance. We propose that SERF1 amplifies the reactive oxygen species-activated MAPK cascade signal during the initial phase of salt stress and translates the salt-induced signal into an appropriate expressional response resulting in salt tolerance.

Integrating Image-Based Phenomics and Association Analysis to Dissect the Genetic Architecture of Temporal Salinity Responses in Rice

“…This is typically observed during the ionic phase of the salinity response (Munns, 2002;Munns and James, 2003;Munns and Tester, 2008). Plants possess distinct mechanisms to adapt to these osmotic and ionic stresses that are controlled by a suite of genes (Apse et al, 1999;Carvajal et al, 1999;Halfter et al, 2000;Ishitani et al, 2000;Shi et al, 2000;Zeng and Shannon, 2000;Rus et al, 2001;Berthomieu et al, 2003;Martínez-Ballesta et al, 2003;Boursiac et al, 2005Boursiac et al, , 2008Ren et al, 2005;Huang et al, 2006;Davenport et al, 2007;Obata et al, 2007;Székely et al, 2008;Horie et al, 2011;Rivandi et al, 2011;Asano et al, 2012;Munns et al, 2012;Latz et al, 2013;Schmidt et al, 2013;Campo et al, 2014;Choi et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2014). The genetic basis of temporal adaptive responses to salinity stress remains to be explored in rice and other crops.…”

Detection and Characterization of the Effect of AB‐FUBINACA and Its Metabolites in a Rat Model

“…MAPK genes respond to stress stimuli such as oxidative stress, which activate enzymes to oxidize AB‐FUBINACA. Studies have been shown that MAPK cascade and downstream transcription factors represent key regulatory components of reactive oxygen species signaling [Skopelitis et al, 2006; Wang et al, 2008; Schmidt et al, 2013]. …”

Salt-Related MYB1 Coordinates Abscisic Acid Biosynthesis and Signaling during Salt Stress in Arabidopsis

“…It is plausible that SRM1 is required for the initial induction of these genes during salt stress. However, subsequent increase in ABA levels (Schmidt et al, 2013) may then suffice to further enhance the induction. We show here that induction of SRM1 results only in a transient activation of these genes in the absence of stress (Fig.…”

“…In vitro expression and EMSA assays were done as previously described (Schmidt et al, 2013). In short, the TNT SP6 HighYield Wheat Germ Mastermix containing 1 mL of FluoroTec Green Lys (Promega) was used to generate SRM1 protein.…”

“…For the immunopurification of the SRM1-GFP: DNA complex, a mouse anti-GFP antibody (Roche Applied Science) was used. ChIP analysis with the EpiQuik Plant ChIP kit (Epigentek Group) was essentially performed as previously described (Schmidt et al, 2013;Lu et al, 2014). Primers used are listed in Supplemental Table S2 and were designed with the Primer3 software tool (Rozen and Skaletsky, 2000).…”