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VvWRKY13 from Vitis vinifera negatively modulates salinity tolerance

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Abstract

WRKY transcription factors participate in the salt stress responses of various plant species, but the underlying functional mechanisms are not well understood, particularly in grape. In this study, the role of VvWRKY13 in the salt stress response was characterized and the underlying physiological and molecular mechanisms were explored. The results show that VvWRKY13 expression was induced by salt stress, and the VvWRKY13 transcript level in the salt stress-sensitive cultivar was significantly higher than that in the resistant cultivars. Overexpression of VvWRKY13 in Arabidopsis significantly inhibited the growth of transgenic plants under salt stress, indicating that VvWRKY13 has a negative effect on the salt stress response. The photosynthetic rate, contents of proline and soluble sugars, activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT), as well as transcriptional levels of proline and soluble sugar metabolic genes, such as P5CS1, SS1, SS2 and G6PDH, as well as SOD and CAT encoding genes CAT1, CAT2, and Cu/Zn-SOD, all decreased under salt stress, whereas hydrogen peroxide and oxygen-free radical contents increased in transgenic Arabidopsis plants compared with those of wild-type plants. VvWRKY13 suppressed upregulation of SnRK2.3, ABF1, ABF2, ABF3, RD29B, RD29A, and RAB18 induced by salt stress, but showed no significant effect on the transcript levels of SnRK2.2, SnRK2.6, or RD22, indicating that VvWRKY13 affects salt stress tolerance via a specific abscisic acid signaling pathway.

Key message

VvWRKY13, isolated from grapevine, negatively regulate salt stress tolerance by depressing photosynthetic capacity, inhibiting salt-induced accumulation of osmolytes and up-regulation in antioxidant activity as well as expression of related genes. VvWRKY13 may affects salt stress tolerance by specific ABA signalling.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFD1000302), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31572107, 31872082, 31770275 and 31401844) and a Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (Grant No. J18KA133).

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  1. Che Yongmei and Zhang Zhen have contributed equally to this study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Science, Key Lab of Plant Biotechnology in Universities of Shandong Province, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, 266109, China

    Che Yongmei, Zhang Zhen, Zhu Dan, Hao Jie, Hou Lixia & Liu Xin

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  1. Che Yongmei
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  2. Zhang Zhen
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  3. Zhu Dan
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  4. Hao Jie
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  5. Hou Lixia
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  6. Liu Xin
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Contributions

XL and YC conceived and designed the experiments, DZ and LH conducted the experiments, and ZZ and JH performed the experiments. YC wrote the manuscript. ZZ and JH analyzed the data and prepared the figures. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Liu Xin.

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Communicated by Manoj Prasad.

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11240_2019_1620_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 1 Supplemental Fig. 1 Genetic map of plasmid Super1300 used for Arabidopsis transformation (TIFF 327 kb)

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Yongmei, C., Zhen, Z., Dan, Z. et al. VvWRKY13 from Vitis vinifera negatively modulates salinity tolerance. Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult 139, 455–465 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-019-01620-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-019-01620-8

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