Abstract
Flavonoids are a kind of plant-specific secondary metabolites, which play an important role in regulating plant growth and development, stress response, and also have medicinal value. Chalcone synthase is the key enzyme in the synthesis of flavonoids. The function of chalcone synthase in Arabidopsis thaliana has been well studied, but its homologous protein in Brachypodium distachyon has not been reported. In this study, we identified a homolog of AtCHS in B. distachyon, named BdCHS, and described its function. Phylogenetic tree analysis showed that BdCHS was most closely related to CHS in Triticum aestivum. Transgene analysis revealed that BdCHS protein was localized in the cytoplasm of Arabidopsis root cells. BdCHS protein can complement the phenotype of AtCHS mutants with lighter seed coat color and increased lateral root density. The content of superoxide anion in the cortical cells above the lateral root primordium in AtCHS mutants was higher than that in the wild-type, and BdCHS protein could restore the content of superoxide anion in AtCHS mutant to the level of that in the wild-type. The results showed that BdCHS was a functional homolog of AtCHS, which laid a foundation for the subsequent application of BdCHS in genetic breeding and crop improvement.
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Abbreviations
- CHS:
-
Chalcone synthase
- TT4:
-
TRANSPARENT TESTA 4
- ACC:
-
1-Aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid
- ROS:
-
Reactive oxygen species
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Funding
The tt4-11 mutant (SALK_020583C) was provided by the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center. This work was supported by grants from the Graduate Innovation Project of Shanxi Province (2021Y481 and 2021Y493).
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JW, XLW, SFZ, and XYX performed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. JLF and RH contributed to the designing of experiments and improvement of manuscript.
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Communicated by Handling Editor: Peter Nick.
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Wang, J., Wang, X., Zhao, S. et al. Brachypodium BdCHS is a homolog of Arabidopsis AtCHS involved in the synthesis of flavonoids and lateral root development. Protoplasma 260, 999–1003 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-022-01819-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-022-01819-1