Transcription Regulation of Abiotic Stress Responses in Rice: A Combined Action of Transcription Factors and Epigenetic Mechanisms

Abstract

Plant growth and crop production are highly reduced by adverse environmental conditions and rice is particularly sensitive to abiotic stresses. Plants have developed a number of different mechanisms to respond and try to adapt to abiotic stress. Plant response to stress such as drought, cold, and high salinity, implies rapid and coordinated changes at transcriptional level of entire gene networks. During the last decade many transcription factors, belonging to different families, have been shown to act as positive or negative regulators of stress responsive genes, thus playing an extremely important role in stress signaling. More recently, epigenetic mechanisms have been also involved in the regulation of the stress responsive genes. In this review, we have performed a comprehensive analysis of the rice transcription factors reported so far as being involved in abiotic stress responses. The impact of abiotic stresses on epigenomes is also addressed. Finally, we update the connections made so far between DNA-binding transcription factors (TFs), and epigenetic mechanisms (DNA methylation and histones methylation or acetylation) emphasizing an integrative view of transcription regulation.

Light affects salt stress-induced transcriptional memory of P5CS1 in Arabidopsis

“…Given the fact that the stability and activity of HY5/HYH are subjected to different levels of light-mediated regulation, such as that by proteasome and kinase (36), it is possible that HY5/HYH is differentially fine-tuned for specific tissue. Actually, many TFs have been reported to function in organ-specific manners (10,37,38).…”

“…For salt stress, on the other hand, the dynamic of a transcriptional repressive mark, H3K27me3, on salt stress-responsive genes was proposed to contribute to their long-term stress memory in Arabidopsis (9). So far, there is no evidence that the enzyme responsible for epigenetic modification, like DNA or histone methyltransferase and histone acetyltransferase, could interact directly with the target genomic DNA region (10). Thus, other proteins, such as transcription factors (TFs) and associated proteins, might function as a mediator for those enzymes to achieve a coordinated and specific gene regulation.…”

<strong>When water runs dry and temperature heats up: </strong><strong>Understanding the mechanisms in rice tolerance to drought and </strong><strong>high temperature stress conditions</strong>

“…Epigenetic regulation is a common molecular mechanism that can facilitate efficient gene expression patterns and help plants survive in unfavorable conditions (Pikaard and Scheid, 2014). This regulatory mechanism has been observed in rice response to various abiotic stresses , Santos et al, 2011. Discussions below detail the roles of DNA methylation and histone modification in rice under abiotic stresses.…”

Microarray Analysis of bacterial blight resistance 1 mutant rice infected with Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae

“…WRKY, myeloblastosis (MYB), APETALA2 (AP2) domain containing transcription factors (ethylene-responsive element-binding proteins; EREBPs, C-repeat-binding proteins; CBFs, related to ABI3/VP1; RAV), basic region/leucine zipper motif (bZIP), no apical meristem (NAM), zincfinger proteins, and heat shock factors (HSFs) are encoded by large gene families and have been intensively studied for their roles in stress responses (Kagaya et al 1999;Singh et al 2002;Saibo et al 2009;Hirayama and Shinozaki 2010;Santos et al 2011;Scharf et al 2012).…”