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Genome-wide analysis of the HD-ZIP IV transcription factor family in Gossypium arboreum and GaHDG11 involved in osmotic tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis

Molecular Genetics and Genomics volume 292, pages 593–609 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

HD-ZIP IV proteins belong to the homeodomain-leucine zipper (HD-ZIP) transcription factor family and are involved in trichome development and drought stress in plants. Although some functions of the HD-ZIP IV group are well understood in Arabidopsis, little is known about their function in cotton. In this study, HD-ZIP genes were identified from three Gossypium species (G. arboreum, G. raimondii and G. hirsutum) and clustered into four families (HD-ZIP I, II, III and IV) to separate HD-ZIP IV from the other three families. Systematic analyses of phylogeny, gene structure, conserved domains, and expression profiles in different plant tissues and the expression patterns under osmotic stress in leaves were further conducted in G. arboreum. More importantly, ectopic overexpression of GaHDG11, a representative of the HD-ZIP IV family, confers enhanced osmotic tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis plants, possibly due to elongated primary root length, lower water loss rates, high osmoprotectant proline levels, significant levels of antioxidants CAT, and/or SOD enzyme activity with reduced levels of MDA. Taken together, these observations may lay the foundation for future functional analysis of cotton HD-ZIP IV genes to unravel their biological roles in cotton.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Jiahe Wu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing) and Maozhi Ren (Chongqing University, Chongqing) for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Major Program of Joint Funds (Sinkiang) of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant U1303282) and a Grant from Henan province (No. 162300410160).

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    Affiliations

    1. State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, Institute of Cotton Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Anyang, 455000, China

      Eryong Chen, Xueyan Zhang, Zhaoen Yang, Xiaoqian Wang, Zuoren Yang, Chaojun Zhang, Zhixia Wu, Depei Kong, Zhao Liu, Ge Zhao, Hamama Islam Butt & Fuguang Li

    2. Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

      Eryong Chen & Xianlong Zhang

    3. College of Agronomy, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, 830052, China

      Zhaoen Yang

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    E. Chen, X. Zhang, Z. Yang and X. Wang contributed equally to this work.

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    Electronic supplementary material

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    Figure S1. Phylogenetic analysis of HD-ZIP genes from G. arboreum, G. raimondii, G. hirsutum, Arabidopsis, rice and sorghum (PDF 944 KB)

    Figure S2. Comparison of gene structure between G. arboreum and Arabidopsis (JPG 997 KB)

    Figure S3. Multiple alignment of HD-ZIP IV proteins from G. arboreum, Arabidopsis and rice (PDF 425 KB)

    438_2017_1293_MOESM4_ESM.docx

    Figure S4. Amino acid sequence identity comparison between GaHDG11 and Gh_HDG11 (DOCX 35 KB)

    438_2017_1293_MOESM5_ESM.docx

    Figure S5. Amino acid sequence identity comparison between GaHDG11 and AtEDT1 (DOCX 46 KB)

    438_2017_1293_MOESM6_ESM.txt

    Supplementary Table 1. All sequences of the HD-ZIP class from the three Gossypium spp., Arabidopsis, rice and sorghum (TXT 191 KB)

    438_2017_1293_MOESM7_ESM.docx

    Supplementary Table 2. The number of members in the four HD-ZIP families (HD-ZIP I, II, III, IV) from G. arboreum, G. raimondii, G. hirsutum, Arabidopsis, rice and sorghum (DOCX 17 KB)

    438_2017_1293_MOESM8_ESM.docx

    Supplementary Table 3. The specific qRT-PCR primers used to analyze the expression patterns of the HD-ZIP IV family genes (DOCX 15 KB)

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    Chen, E., Zhang, X., Yang, Z. et al. Genome-wide analysis of the HD-ZIP IV transcription factor family in Gossypium arboreum and GaHDG11 involved in osmotic tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis . Mol Genet Genomics 292, 593–609 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-017-1293-5

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    Keywords

    • HD-ZIP IV transcription factor
    • Gossypium arboreum
    • GaHDG11
    • Osmotic tolerance
    • Arabidopsis