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Soybean (Glycine max) WRINKLED1 transcription factor, GmWRI1a, positively regulates seed oil accumulation

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Abstract

Soybean is the world’s most important leguminous crop producing high-quality protein and oil. Elevating oil accumulation in soybean seed is always many researchers’ goal. WRINKLED1 (WRI1) encodes a transcription factor of the APETALA2/ethylene responsive element-binding protein (AP2/EREBP) family that plays important roles during plant seed oil accumulation. In this study, we isolated and characterized three distinct orthologues of WRI1 in soybean (Glycine max) that display different organ-specific expression patterns, among which GmWRI1a was highly expressed in maturing soybean seed. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays and yeast one-hybrid experiments demonstrated that the GmWRI1a protein was capable of binding to AW-box, a conserved sequence in the proximal upstream regions of many genes involved in various steps of oil biosynthesis. Transgenic soybean seeds overexpressing GmWRI1a under the control of the seed-specific napin promoter showed the increased total oil and fatty acid content and the changed fatty acid composition. Furthermore, basing on the activated expressions in transgenic soybean seeds and existence of AW-box element in the promoter regions, direct downstream genes of GmWRI1a were identified, and their products were responsible for fatty acid production, elongation, desaturation and export from plastid. We conclude that GmWRI1a transcription factor can positively regulate oil accumulation in soybean seed by a complex gene expression network related to fatty acid biosynthesis.

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Abbreviations

AP2/EREBP:

APETALA2/ethylene responsive element-binding protein

CaMV:

Cauliflower mosaic virus

DAF:

Days after flowering

EMSA:

Electrophoretic mobility shift assay

FA:

Fatty acid

ORF:

Open reading frame

qRT-PCR:

Quantitative real-time PCR

TAG:

Triacylglycerols

TF:

Transcription factor

WRI:

WRINKLED

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Science and Technology Development Program of Jilin Province (Grant No. 20150520121JH), the Special Foundation for Fostering Talents of Jilin Province (2017–2019), the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Project of Jilin Province (Grant No. CXGC2017ZY007 & CXGC2017TD018), Modern Agricultural Industry Technology System (Grant No. CARS-004-PS11), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31301347) and Key Laboratory of Soybean Biology in Northeast Agricultural University (Grant No. SB16A01) for funding this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Soybean Research Institute, Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences/National Engineering Research Center for Soybean, Changchun, 130033, People’s Republic of China

    Liang Chen, Zhimin Dong, Fanfan Meng, Xingmiao Sun, Xuhong Fan, Yunfeng Zhang, Mingliang Wang & Shuming Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of Soybean Biology in Chinese Ministry of Education, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, 150030, People’s Republic of China

    Yuhong Zheng

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  1. Liang Chen
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  2. Yuhong Zheng
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  3. Zhimin Dong
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Correspondence to Zhimin Dong or Shuming Wang.

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Chen, L., Zheng, Y., Dong, Z. et al. Soybean (Glycine max) WRINKLED1 transcription factor, GmWRI1a, positively regulates seed oil accumulation. Mol Genet Genomics 293, 401–415 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-017-1393-2

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