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Over-Expression of a Transcription Factor Gene BoC3H4 Enhances Salt Stress Tolerance but Reduces Sclerotinia Stem Rot Disease Resistance in Broccoli

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Abstract

C3H-type zinc finger genes play diverse roles in plant growth, development, and stress responses. In our present study, a C3H-type gene namely BoC3H4 was isolated from broccoli. BoC3H4 was 1629 bp in length encoding 542 amino acid residues. The deduced protein sequence contained two ankyrin repeats and two CCCH zinc finger motifs, and those motifs shared high identities with homologous sequences from other Cruciferae plants. The expression levels of BoC3H4 elevated when subjected to both salt stress and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum infection. Broccoli plants with constitutive expression of BoC3H4 demonstrated increased tolerance toward salinity stress, accompanied by a prominent accumulation of proline, and a remarkable decrease of chlorophyll loss, MDA, REC, as well as H2O2 accumulation compared to WT plants. Moreover, over-expression of BoC3H4 in broccoli lines decreased resistance to S. sclerotiorum, and it could not induce the expression of BoPDF1.2 gene, the marker gene for JA/ET signaling pathway. Our study proposes that BoC3H4 acts as a positive regulator of plant tolerance to salinity stress and a negative regulator of resistance to necrotrophic pathogen S. sclerotiorum.

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Abbreviations

SA:

Salicylic acid

ET:

Ethylene

MeJA:

Methyl jasmonate

ABA:

Abscisic acid

MDA:

Malonyldialdehyde

NJ:

Neighbor-joining

REC:

Relative electrical conductivity

qRT-PCR:

Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction

WT:

Wild-type

CTAB:

Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide

NBT:

Nitroblue tetrazolium

DAB:

3,3′-Diaminobenzidine

PR:

Pathogenesis related

TF:

Transcription factors

ZF:

Zinc finger

ROS:

Reactive oxygen species

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Taizhou Science and Technology Project (1901ny08), Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of Taizhou University (2017JQ001), and Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LY19C150004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Sciences, Taizhou University, 1139# Shifu Road, Jiaojiang, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Ming Jiang, Huijuan Zhang & Xin Zhu

  2. Institute of Horticulture, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310021, Zhejiang, China

    Lixiang Miao

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  1. Ming Jiang
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MJ and LM conceived and designed the work. MJ, HZ, LM, and XZ performed the experiments. MJ analyzed the data and wrote the paper. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ming Jiang.

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Jiang, M., Miao, L., Zhang, H. et al. Over-Expression of a Transcription Factor Gene BoC3H4 Enhances Salt Stress Tolerance but Reduces Sclerotinia Stem Rot Disease Resistance in Broccoli. J Plant Growth Regul 39, 1162–1176 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-019-10054-7

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