The bZIP Transcription Factor GmbZIP15 Negatively Regulates Salt- and Drought-Stress Responses in Soybean

Zhang, Man; Liu, Qing; Cai, Hanyang; Guo, Mingliang; Chai, Mengnan; She, Zeyuan; Li, Ye; Cheng, Yan; Wang, Bingrui; Qin, Yuan

doi:10.3390/ijms21207778

Cited by 49 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 72 publications

(102 reference statements)

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“…Even though CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing has been successfully used to improve important agronomic traits in several different crops (Ma et al, 2015;Gao et al, 2016;Lu et al, 2017;Shimatani et al, 2017;He et al, 2018;Zsögön et al, 2018;Chen et al, 2019), identification of suitable candidate genes in ABA signaling pathway for genome editing to improve abiotic stress tolerance in crops is a big challenge. In soybean, several different types of transcription factors involved in abiotic stress tolerance have been reported to be related to ABA signaling pathway, such as the AP2/ERF transcription factor GmERF3 (Zhang et al, 2009), the bZIP transcription factor GmbZIP1, GmbZIP15 and GmFDL19 (Gao et al, 2011;Zhang et al, 2020), the R2R3 MYB transcription factor GmMYB84 (Wang et al, 2017), the WRKY transcription factor GmWRKY12 and GmWRKY54 (Shi et al, 2018;Wei et al, 2019), and the NAC transcription factor GmSIN1, GmNAC06 and GmNAC8 (Li et al, 2019(Li et al, , 2021Yang et al, 2020). However, among all these transcription factors, only GmbZIP15 functioned as a negative regulator of abiotic stress tolerance in soybean, yet no enhanced tolerance was observed in the transgenic soybean plants expressing a repressor form of GmbZIP15 (Zhang et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutation of GmAITR Genes by CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing Results in Enhanced Salinity Stress Tolerance in Soybean

et al. 2021

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Breeding of stress-tolerant plants is able to improve crop yield under stress conditions, whereas CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing has been shown to be an efficient way for molecular breeding to improve agronomic traits including stress tolerance in crops. However, genes can be targeted for genome editing to enhance crop abiotic stress tolerance remained largely unidentified. We have previously identified abscisic acid (ABA)-induced transcription repressors (AITRs) as a novel family of transcription factors that are involved in the regulation of ABA signaling, and we found that knockout of the entire family of AITR genes in Arabidopsis enhanced drought and salinity tolerance without fitness costs. Considering that AITRs are conserved in angiosperms, AITRs in crops may be targeted for genome editing to improve abiotic stress tolerance. We report here that mutation of GmAITR genes by CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing leads to enhanced salinity tolerance in soybean. By using quantitative RT-PCR analysis, we found that the expression levels of GmAITRs were increased in response to ABA and salt treatments. Transfection assays in soybean protoplasts show that GmAITRs are nucleus proteins, and have transcriptional repression activities. By using CRISPR/Cas9 to target the six GmAITRs simultaneously, we successfully generated Cas9-free gmaitr36 double and gmaitr23456 quintuple mutants. We found that ABA sensitivity in these mutants was increased. Consistent with this, ABA responses of some ABA signaling key regulator genes in the gmaitr mutants were altered. In both seed germination and seedling growth assays, the gmaitr mutants showed enhanced salt tolerance. Most importantly, enhanced salinity tolerance in the mutant plants was also observed in the field experiments. These results suggest that mutation of GmAITR genes by CRISPR/Cas9 is an efficient way to improve salinity tolerance in soybean.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutation of GmAITR Genes by CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing Results in Enhanced Salinity Stress Tolerance in Soybean

et al. 2021

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“…To determine the function of GmbZIP15 in response to S . sclerotiorum , we transformed soybean plants with a construct harboring GmbZIP15-GFP driven by the 35S promoter ( OX-GmbZIP15 ) and a functional repressor form of GmbZIP15 ( 35S : bZIP15-SRDX ) via Agrobacterium -mediated transformation and two lines with higher expression levels were selected for further research, respectively ( Zhang et al., 2020 ). Hypocotyl-wound inoculation and detached-leaf inoculation were used to assess the response to S .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To investigate the functional conservation of GmbZIP15 in S . sclerotiorum plant interactions, we generated OX-GmbZIP15 and 35S : GmbZIP15-SRDX transgenic Arabidopsis plants ( Zhang et al., 2020 ) and evaluated the effect of GmbZIP15 on the response to S . sclerotiorum in Arabidopsis .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The bZIP transcription factor GmbZIP15 facilitates resistance against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Phytophthora sojae infection in soybean

Zhang

Liu

et al. 2021

iScience

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Summary Soybean, one of the most valuable oilseed crops, is under constant pressure from pathogens. bZIP transcription factors (TFs) composing one of the largest TF families in plants have diverse functions. Biochemical and physiological analyses were performed to characterize the regulatory roles of soybean bZIP TF GmbZIP15 in response to pathogens. We found that transgenic soybean plants overexpressing GmbZIP15 has increased resistance against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Phytophthora sojae . Besides, GmbZIP15 regulates pathogen response by modulating the antioxidant defense system and phytohormone signaling. In addition, we performed chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing to identify the downstream genes of GmbZIP15 in response to S . sclerotiorum and found that GmbZIP15 can activate or repress the expression of defense-related genes through direct promoter binding. Taken together, these results indicate that GmbZIP15 plays a positive role in pathogen resistance in soybean, and this activity may be dependent on phytohormone signaling.

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“…It was found that nuclear-localized C subfamily member TabZIP6 in wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) could not only homodimerize but also form a dimer with other two S subfamily bZIP proteins, which are involved in cold tolerance ( Cai et al, 2018 ). In soybean, GmbZIP15 negatively regulated GmWRKY12 and GmABF1 and made it sensitive to salt and drought stress ( Zhang et al, 2020 ). It was found that IbbZIP1 in sweet potato was related to salt and drought tolerance and was highly responsive to ABA ( Kang et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome-Wide Characterization and Expression Analysis of bZIP Gene Family Under Abiotic Stress in Glycyrrhiza uralensis

Han

Hou

et al. 2021

Front. Genet.

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bZIP gene family is one of the largest transcription factor families. It plays an important role in plant growth, metabolic, and environmental response. However, complete genome-wide investigation of bZIP gene family in Glycyrrhiza uralensis remains unexplained. In this study, 66 putative bZIP genes in the genome of G. uralensis were identified. And their evolutionary classification, physicochemical properties, conserved domain, functional differentiation, and the expression level under different stress conditions were further analyzed. All the members were clustered into 13 subfamilies (A–K, M, and S). A total of 10 conserved motifs were found in GubZIP proteins. Members from the same subfamily shared highly similar gene structures and conserved domains. Tandem duplication events acted as a major driving force for the evolution of bZIP gene family in G. uralensis. Cis-acting elements and protein–protein interaction networks showed that GubZIPs in one subfamily are involved in multiple functions, while some GubZIPs from different subfamilies may share the same functional category. The miRNA network targeting GubZIPs showed that the regulation at the transcriptional level may affect protein–protein interaction networks. We suspected that domain-mediated interactions may categorize a protein family into subfamilies in G. uralensis. Furthermore, the tissue-specific gene expression patterns of GubZIPs were analyzed using the public RNA-seq data. Moreover, gene expression level of 66 bZIP family members under abiotic stress treatments was quantified by using qRT-PCR. The results of this study may serve as potential candidates for functional characterization in the future.

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The bZIP Transcription Factor GmbZIP15 Negatively Regulates Salt- and Drought-Stress Responses in Soybean

Cited by 49 publications

References 72 publications

Mutation of GmAITR Genes by CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing Results in Enhanced Salinity Stress Tolerance in Soybean

Mutation of GmAITR Genes by CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing Results in Enhanced Salinity Stress Tolerance in Soybean

The bZIP transcription factor GmbZIP15 facilitates resistance against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Phytophthora sojae infection in soybean

Genome-Wide Characterization and Expression Analysis of bZIP Gene Family Under Abiotic Stress in Glycyrrhiza uralensis

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