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Overexpression of C-Repeat Binding Factor1 (CBF1) Gene Enhances Heat Stress Tolerance in Arabidopsis

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Abstract

High temperature affects plant growth, development, and seed production. We generated Arabidopsis transgenic plants overexpressing abiotic stress-tolerance associated genes (CBF1, GolS1, NDPK2, YUC6, and PRE1) to investigate the effects of these genes on heat stress (HS) tolerance. We evaluated thermotolerance by assessing the survival rate of T2 seedlings under acute HS conditions. C-repeat binding factor 1-overexpressing (CBF1-OE) plants exhibited drastically improved HS tolerance, whereas overexpression of the other examined genes yielded marginal effects. Consistent with the ability of CBF1 to regulate transcription, we found that the transcription of several heat-shock inducible genes was remarkably increased in CBF1-OE plants under HS conditions. Furthermore, the expression of several reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive genes related to oxidative stress was notably upregulated in CBF1-OE plants. Thus, the thermotolerance of CBF1-OE plants is at least partly associated with the elevated expression of several HS-inducible and ROS-responsive genes. Our study showed that CBF1 plays a role in increasing HS tolerance in Arabidopsis in addition to its previously established roles in cold/drought tolerance.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Jian-Kang Zhu and Prof. Byeong-Ha Lee (Sogang University, South Korea) for providing the cbf1 mutant edited by the CRISPR/Cas9 system (Zhao et al. 2016). This research was supported by Kyungpook National University Development Project Research Fund, 2018.

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  1. Sang Dae Yun and Myung-Hee Kim have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Biosciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, 41566, Republic of Korea

    Sang Dae Yun, Myung-Hee Kim, Sung Aeong Oh & Soon Ki Park

  2. Division of Integrative Bioscience and Biotechnology, College of Life Science, Sejong University, Seoul, 05006, Republic of Korea

    Moon-Soo Soh

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  1. Sang Dae Yun
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  2. Myung-Hee Kim
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Contributions

SDY and MHK performed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. SAO, MSS and SKP designed the experiment and analyzed the data. SKP supervised the project and complemented the writing.

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Correspondence to Soon Ki Park.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Yun, S.D., Kim, MH., Oh, S.A. et al. Overexpression of C-Repeat Binding Factor1 (CBF1) Gene Enhances Heat Stress Tolerance in Arabidopsis. J. Plant Biol. 65, 253–260 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12374-022-09350-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12374-022-09350-9

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