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Identification and characterization of a novel heat shock transcription factor gene, GmHsfA1, in soybeans (Glycine max)

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Abstract

Plants have a large family of HSFs with different roles in the heat shock response that mediate the expression of HSP regulated genes. The HSF encoding genes are easily identified by their highly conserved modular structure and motifs. In the present study, a putative GmHsfA1 was identified and characterized from the soybean expressed sequence tag (EST) database by sequence comparison with the functionally well-characterized LpHsfA1 and rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE). Multiple alignment showed that the amino acid sequence of GmHSFA1, matching best with LpHSFA1 (52.2% similarity), was obviously different from that of each of several HSFA1s from other plant species. The GmHsfA1 has a constitutive expression profile in the different tissues examined. The overexpression of GmHsfA1 in transgenic soybean plants led to the activation of GmHsp70 under normal temperature and the overexpression of GmHsp70 under high temperature. Furthermore, transgenic soybean plants with GmHsfA1 overexpression showed obvious enhancement of thermotolerance under heat stress in comparison with non-transgenic plants. The experimental results suggested that GmHSFA1 is a novel and functional heat-shock transcription factor.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge Dr. Weicai Yang for improving the English expression of this manuscript and Prof. Bin Wang for his help for some experiments. This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grant (30270836), “973” Project (2002CB111304), “863” Project (2002AA211051), and the National Scientific Research Program (2004BA525B06).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Baoge Zhu, Chunjiang Ye, Huiying Lü, Xiaojun Chen, Guohua Chai, Jiannan Chen & Chao Wang

  2. Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yuquan Street, Beijing, 100039, China

    Chunjiang Ye

  3. Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, Xinjiang, 830052, China

    Xiaojun Chen

  4. Northwest Sci-Tech University of Agriculture and Forestry, Yangling, Shanxi, 712100, China

    Guohua Chai

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  1. Baoge Zhu
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  2. Chunjiang Ye
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  3. Huiying Lü
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  4. Xiaojun Chen
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  5. Guohua Chai
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  6. Jiannan Chen
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  7. Chao Wang
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Correspondence to Baoge Zhu.

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Ye CJ, Lü HY and the first author contributed equally to this work.

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Zhu, B., Ye, C., Lü, H. et al. Identification and characterization of a novel heat shock transcription factor gene, GmHsfA1, in soybeans (Glycine max). J Plant Res 119, 247–256 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-006-0267-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-006-0267-1

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