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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Brassica RNA binding protein ERD4 is involved in conferring salt, drought tolerance and enhancing plant growth in Arabidopsis

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Abstract

‘Early responsive to dehydration’ (ERD) genes are a group of plant genes having functional roles in plant stress tolerance and development. In this study, we have isolated and characterized a Brassica juncea ‘ERD’ gene (BjERD4) which encodes a novel RNA binding protein. The expression pattern of ERD4 analyzed under different stress conditions showed that transcript levels were increased with dehydration, sodium chloride, low temperature, heat, abscisic acid and salicylic acid treatments. The BjERD4 was found to be localized in the chloroplasts as revealed by Confocal microscopy studies. To study the function, transgenic Arabidopsis plants were generated and analyzed for various morphological and physiological parameters. The overexpressing transgenic lines showed significant increase in number of leaves with more leaf area and larger siliques as compared to wild type plants, whereas RNAi:ERD4 transgenic lines showed reduced leaf number, leaf area, dwarf phenotype and delayed seed germination. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing BjERD4 gene also exhibited enhanced tolerance to dehydration and salt stresses, while the knockdown lines were susceptible as compared to wild type plants under similar stress conditions. It was observed that BjERD4 protein could bind RNA as evidenced by the gel-shift assay. The overall results of transcript analysis, RNA gel-shift assay, and transgenic expression, for the first time, show that the BjERD4 is involved in abiotic stress tolerance besides offering new clues about the possible roles of BjERD4 in plant growth and development.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded through the departmental funds provided by BARC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Stress Physiology and Biotechnology Section, Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, 400085, India

    Archana N. Rai & P. Suprasanna

  2. Centre for Plant Molecular Biology, Osmania University, Hyderabad, 500007, India

    Srinath Tamirisa & K. V. Rao

  3. Solid State Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, 400085, India

    Vinay Kumar

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  1. Archana N. Rai
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Correspondence to P. Suprasanna.

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Additional information

This article has been retracted by the authors due to the fact that panels in Figure 3C are duplicated for different transgenic lines. All authors have agreed to the retraction of this paper and deeply regret the duplication. The authors maintain that the duplication does not affect the interpretation or conclusions of their study. They will seek to publish the results in a new manuscript with a corrected version of the figure to corroborate the findings of this work. The authors deeply regret the inconvenience caused by the retraction

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11103-016-0574-4.

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11103_2015_423_MOESM1_ESM.ppt

Sup. Figure 1: Expression analysis of ERD4 in leaves: Expression analysis of ERD4 gene using qRT PCR analysis in leaves under salinity (NaCl, 200 mM) (A), drought (PEG, 20 %) (B) at different time periods (temporal expression) and other abiotic stresses after 1 h (C). Tubulin was used as an internal control. The vertical column indicates the relative ERD4 transcript level. The mean and SE from three independent experiments are shown. * indicates significant differences in comparison with the control at P < 0.05 (PPT 182 kb)

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Rai, A.N., Tamirisa, S., Rao, K.V. et al. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Brassica RNA binding protein ERD4 is involved in conferring salt, drought tolerance and enhancing plant growth in Arabidopsis. Plant Mol Biol 90, 375–387 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-015-0423-x

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