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The HyPRP gene EARLI1 has an auxiliary role for germinability and early seedling development under low temperature and salt stress conditions in Arabidopsis thaliana

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Abstract

The effect of the hybrid proline-rich protein (HyPRP) gene EARLI1 on the rate of germination (germinability) of Arabidopsis seeds and seedling growth under low temperature and salt stress conditions was investigated. EARLI1 was induced during germination in embryonic tissues, and was strongly expressed in certain parts of young seedlings. Comparisons of control, overexpressing (OX), and knockout (KO) lines indicated that higher than wild type levels of EARLI1 improved germinability, root elongation, and reduction of sodium accumulation in leaves under salt stress, as well as germinability under low-temperature stress. Abscisic acid (ABA) contents were relatively low after prolonged salt stress, suggesting that EARLI1 has an ABA-independent effect on germinability under these conditions. Overexpression of EARLI1 during germination enhanced the sensitivity of seeds to exogenously applied ABA, suggesting that EARLI1 has an ABA-dependent negative effect on seed germinability under high ABA stress conditions. Well-known stress response marker genes such as COR15a, KIN1, P5SC1, and RD29 were unaffected whereas P5SC2, RD22, or RAB18 were only slightly affected in OX and KO plants. The pleiotropic effects of EARLI1 during stress and an absence of strong regulatory effects on stress marker genes suggest that this HyPRP gene has an auxiliary role for various stress protection responses in Arabidopsis.

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Abbreviations

8CM:

Eight-cysteine-motif

ABA:

Abscisic acid

AZI1 :

AZELAIC ACID INDUCED1 (At4g12470)

EARLI1 :

EARLY ARABIDOPSIS ALUMINUM INDUCED1 (At4g12480)

GA:

Gibberellic acid

GUS:

β-Glucuronidase

HyGRP:

Hybrid glycine-rich protein

HyPRP:

Hybrid proline-rich protein

KO:

Knockout

LTP:

Lipid transfer protein

OX:

Overexpressing

PRD:

Proline-rich domain

qLTG3-1:

Quantitative trait locus LOW TEMPERATURE GERMINABILITY 3-1

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Richard Wilkosz for helping with the GUS constructs. We strongly appreciate the expertise of Drs. Jinfang Chu, Xiaohong Sun, and Cunyu Yan (National Centre for Plant Gene Research, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China) in determining the ABA contents of Arabidopsis seedlings. We are very grateful to Dr. Chengcai Chu (Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and members of his laboratory for technical and material assistance regarding the qPCR and hormone detection analyses. This work was supported in part by a grant from the US Department of Agriculture (96-35301-3867), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30870194), the Provincial Key Laboratory Research Project of the Education Department of Shaanxi Province (08JZ70, 2010JS090), the Development Project of Science and Technology Research of Shaanxi Province (the Program for Tackling Key Problems, 2010K16-04-01) and the Postgraduate Innovation Research Project of Northwest University (09YSY38).

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  1. Dan Xu

    Present address: Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China (Ministry of Education), Institute of Life Science, Northwest University, Xi’an, 710069, Shaanxi, China

    Dan Xu, Xuan Huang & Zi-Qin Xu

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, 53233, USA

    Michael Schläppi

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  1. Dan Xu
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Correspondence to Michael Schläppi.

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Xu, D., Huang, X., Xu, ZQ. et al. The HyPRP gene EARLI1 has an auxiliary role for germinability and early seedling development under low temperature and salt stress conditions in Arabidopsis thaliana . Planta 234, 565–577 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-011-1425-9

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