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ZmWRKY33, a WRKY maize transcription factor conferring enhanced salt stress tolerances in Arabidopsis

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Abstract

Drought, high salinity and low temperature are major abiotic stresses affecting growth of plants and can result in severe yield losses for economic crops. In plants, most abiotic stress responses are controlled at the transcriptional level which are regulated by transcription factors (TFs). TFs can be divided into different types and families according to their DNA-binding domains; among them, WRKY TF family is one of the most important superfamilies involve in plant’s abiotic stress response. Studying WRKY TFs, especially those of cultivated crops, can facilitate their molecular genetic modification. In this paper, a WRKY gene, designated as ZmWRKY33, was isolated and characterized from maize (Zea mays L.). ZmWRKY33, belonging to Group I WRKY gene, harbors one intron and encodes a predicted protein with 498 amino acids. Real-time PCR analyses were performed to determine the expression profiles of ZmWRKY33 under abiotic stress. Results showed that ZmWRKY33 was induced by high salt, dehydration, cold and ABA treatments. Overexpression of ZmWRKY33 in Arabidopsis activated stress-induced genes, for example, RD29A, under normal growth condition and improved salt stress tolerance under stress condition. These results suggest that ZmWRKY33 plays an important role in abiotic stress response of maize.

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Abbreviations

ABA:

Abscisic acid

EST:

Expressed sequence tag

MS:

Murashige and Skoog

PCR:

Polymerase chain reaction

PEG:

Polyethylene glycol

qRT-PCR:

Quantitative real-time PCR

RT-PCR:

Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction

TF:

Transcription factors

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31101093). This research was funded by the National Key Project of Transgenic Crops of China (2009ZX08002-011B), Natural science Research Project for colleges and universities in Jiangsu Province (No. 11KJB210005) and National Program on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program). It was also partially funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, 88 Daxue Road, Yangzhou, 225009, China

    Hua Li, Yong Gao, Hu Xu, Yi Dai, Deqiang Deng & Jianmin Chen

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  1. Hua Li
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  2. Yong Gao
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  3. Hu Xu
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  4. Yi Dai
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  5. Deqiang Deng
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  6. Jianmin Chen
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yong Gao or Jianmin Chen.

Additional information

Hua Li and Yong Gao contributed equally to this work.

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Li, H., Gao, Y., Xu, H. et al. ZmWRKY33, a WRKY maize transcription factor conferring enhanced salt stress tolerances in Arabidopsis . Plant Growth Regul 70, 207–216 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-013-9792-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-013-9792-9

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