Abstract
Main conclusion
Exogenous brassinolide can activate the expression of key genes in the calcium signalling pathway to enhance cold resistance of tea plants.
Abstract
Brassinolide is an endogenous sterol phytohormone containing multiple hydroxyl groups that has the important function of improving plant cold resistance and alleviating freeze damage. To explore the molecular mechanism of how brassinolide improves the cold resistance of tea plants, “Qiancha 1” was used as the material, and the method of spraying brassinolide on the leaves was adopted to explore its effects on the tea plants under 4 °C low-temperature treatment. The results showed that brassinolide can significantly increase the protective enzyme activity of tea plants under cold stress and reduce cold damage. At the transcriptome level, brassinolide significantly enhanced the expression of key genes involved in calcium signal transduction, Calmodulin (CaM), Calcium-dependent protein kinase (CDPK), calcineurin B-like protein (CBL) and calmodulin-binding transcriptional activators (CAMTA), which then activated the downstream key genes transcriptional regulator CBF1 (CBF1) and transcription factor ICE1 (ICE1) during cold induction. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT‒PCR) results showed that the expression of these genes was significantly induced after treatment with brassinolide, especially CaM and CBF1. When calcium signalling was inhibited, the upregulated expression of CBF1 and ICE1 disappeared, and when CAMTA was knocked down, the expression of other genes under cold stress was also significantly reduced. The above results indicate that brassinolide combined with the calcium signalling pathway can improve the cold resistance of tea plants. This study provides a new theoretical basis for the study of the cold resistance mechanism of brassinolide.
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Data availability
The data generated and/or analysed during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Abbreviations
- BL:
-
Brassinolide
- CaM:
-
Calmodulin
- CAMTA:
-
Calmodulin-binding transcriptional activators
- CBF1:
-
Transcriptional regulator CBF1
- CBL:
-
Calcineurin B-like protein
- CDPK:
-
Calcium-dependent protein kinase
- COR:
-
Cold-regulated genes
- DEGs:
-
Differentially expressed genes
- ICE1:
-
Transcription factor ICE1
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China “Function Analysis of Brassinosteroid Transcription Factor CsBZRs in Cold Resistance of Tea Plant” (Grant. no. 32160077) and National Guidance Foundation for Local Science and Technology Development of China (2023-009).
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (Grant. no. 32160077) and National Guidance Foundation for Local Science and Technology Development of China (2023–009).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Yichen Zhao conceived and designed the experiments; material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Kun Ye and Weijian Shen. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Kun Ye and Weijian Shen. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.
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Ye, K., Shen, W. & Zhao, Y. External application of brassinolide enhances cold resistance of tea plants (Camellia sinensis L.) by integrating calcium signals. Planta 258, 114 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-023-04276-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-023-04276-z