The Pepper Late Embryogenesis Abundant Protein, CaDIL1, Positively Regulates Drought Tolerance and ABA Signaling

Abstract

Plants as sessile organisms constantly respond to environmental stress during their growth and development. The regulation of transpiration via stomata plays crucial roles in plant adaptation to drought stress. Many enzyme-encoding genes are involved in regulation of transpiration via modulating stomatal opening and closure. Here, we demonstrate that Capsicum annuum Drought Induced Late embryogenesis abundant protein 1 (CaDIL1) gene is a critical regulator of transpirational water loss in pepper. The expression of CaDIL1 in pepper leaves was upregulated after exposure to abscisic acid (ABA) and drought. Phenotype analysis showed that CaDIL1-silenced pepper and CaDIL1-overexpressing (OX) Arabidopsis transgenic plants exhibited reduced and enhanced drought tolerance, respectively, accompanied by an altered water loss. Furthermore, ABA sensitivity was significantly lower in CaDIL1-silenced pepper, but higher in CaDIL1-OX plants, than that in control plants, which resulted in opposite responses to drought stress in these two plant types. Collectively, our data suggest that CaDIL1 positively regulates the ABA signaling and drought stress tolerance.

Genome-Wide Identification and Expression Profiles of Late Embryogenesis-Abundant (LEA) Genes during Grain Maturation in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

“…LEA was first isolated from cotyledons of cotton at the late embryonic development stage [7]. In the following 30 years, LEA proteins have been detected in a variety of higher plant development seeds [8,9,10,11,12,13]. The LEA family is usually composed of multiple members in plants.…”

Redox and Hormonal Changes in the Transcriptome of Grape (Vitis vinifera) Berries during Natural Noble Rot Development

“…Beyond the group of transcription factors, noble rot also specifically upregulates other osmotic stress-associated genes, including two ABI5 -targeted Late Embryogenesis Abundant 6 orthologs ( VIT_13s0067g01240 and VIT_13s0067g01250 ), an ortholog of Arabidopsis Late Embryogenesis Abundant 3 ( VIT_07s0005g00660 ) and GSTU17 , a drought-stress responsive tau class glutathione S-transferase ( VIT_01s0026g01340 ). Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) proteins have been connected to cellular dehydration tolerance [ 14 , 15 ]. Another conspicuous ABA signaling response detected during noble rot is the repression of two Hypersensitive to ABA1 ( HAB1 ) orthologs ( VIT_04s0008g01420 and VIT_11s0016g01780 ).…”

Responses of late embryogenesis-abundant genes in Leymus chinensis to water deficit

“…Late embryogenesis-abundant (LEA) protein-encoding genes belong to one of three abiotic stress-responsive gene groups involved in the protection of macromolecules and cellular structures (Campo et al 2014). Many LEA genes' expression levels are significantly affected by water-deficiency stress (Olvera-Carrillo et al 2010;Pedrosa et al 2015;Muvunyi et al 2018;Wu et al 2018;Wang et al 2019) and are involved in enhanced resistance to drought stress (Wang et al 2009;Lim et al 2018;Magwanga et al 2018a;Yang et al 2018). Based on the amino acid sequence similarity levels and conserved domains in Pfam-based annotations, the LEA proteins have been divided into at least nine subgroups: LEA1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, dehydrin (DHN), seed maturation protein (SMP) (Wu et al 2018;Wang et al 2019) and abscisic acid-stress ripening (ASR) (Battaglia et al 2008).…”

“…For example, the overexpression of the LEA3 gene from Tamarix androssowii in Phellodendron amurense strengthens the transgenic plants drought tolerance by inducing stomatal closure (Yang et al 2018). In Capsicum annuum, the LEA protein-encoding gene CaDIL1 is induced by drought stress, and its overexpression in Arabidopsis confers a drought-tolerant phenotype to transgenic plants (Lim et al 2018).…”