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Transcriptional Regulation of Seven ERFs in Rice Under Oxygen Depletion and Iron Overload Stress

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Abstract

Submergence can affect plant development due to the stress of oxygen depletion. Another consequence of submergence is toxicity to plants by an excess soluble iron when the soil is under anaerobic conditions. Currently, much attention has been given to the role of ethylene response transcription factors (ERFs) family, especially when plants respond to conditions of oxygen depletion. Considering such a scenario, we aimed to evaluate the transcriptional response of seven ERF genes in leaves of rice seedlings subjected to conditions of anoxia (N2), hypoxia (submergence), and iron overload (2,000 mg L−1 of FeSO4.7H2O). All the analyzed genes showed differential transcriptional expression in response to these three stresses. Analyses in the promoter region of these transcription factors indicated that the promoter region closest to the transcription start site is most responsible for the differential response of these genes under conditions of oxygen absence (anoxia) or reduction (hypoxia). On the other hand, the promoter relationship was not detected for iron stress. The methylation of these regions as a mean of regulation is also suggested as well as the possibility of redundancy of different genes expressed at similar times and stressful conditions.

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Abbreviations

AP2/EREBP:

APETALA2/ethylene responsive element binding protein

Capes:

Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel

cDNA:

Complementary DNA

CNPq:

National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development

ERFs:

Ethylene response factors

FeSO4.7H2O:

Iron sulphate heptahydrate

GAPDH:

Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase

MEME:

Multiple Motif for In Elicitation

MeV:

Multi Experiment Viewer

NCBI BLASTn:

The Basic Local Alignment Search Tool from the National Center for Biotechnology Information

N2 :

Gaseous nitrogen

Pfam:

Protein families

qPCR:

Quantitative PCR

RAP-DB:

The Rice Annotation Project Data Base

SK1 and SK2:

SNORKEL1 and SNORKEL1

TFBS:

Transcription factor binding sites

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Acknowledgement/Funding

This work was supported by the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq); Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, UFPel, C.P. 354, 96010-900, Pelotas, RS, Brazil

    Railson Schreinert dos Santos, Frederico Pedro Madabula, Cesar Valmor Rombaldi & Antonio Costa de Oliveira

  2. Centro de Genômica e Fitomelhoramento, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, UFPel/FAEM, C.P. 354, 96010-900, Pelotas, RS, Brazil

    Railson Schreinert dos Santos, Mariana Madruga Krüger, Camila Pegoraro, Frederico Pedro Madabula, Luciano Carlos da Maia & Antonio Costa de Oliveira

  3. Departamento de Ciência e Tecnologia Agroindustrial, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, UFPel/FAEM, C.P. 354, 96010-900, Pelotas, RS, Brazil

    Cesar Valmor Rombaldi

Authors
  1. Railson Schreinert dos Santos
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  2. Mariana Madruga Krüger
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  3. Camila Pegoraro
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  4. Frederico Pedro Madabula
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  5. Luciano Carlos da Maia
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  6. Cesar Valmor Rombaldi
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  7. Antonio Costa de Oliveira
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Correspondence to Antonio Costa de Oliveira.

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Communicated by: Paulo Arruda

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dos Santos, R.S., Krüger, M.M., Pegoraro, C. et al. Transcriptional Regulation of Seven ERFs in Rice Under Oxygen Depletion and Iron Overload Stress. Tropical Plant Biol. 6, 16–25 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12042-013-9117-1

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