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ABI-like transcription factor gene TaABL1 from wheat improves multiple abiotic stress tolerances in transgenic plants

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Abstract

The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays crucial roles in adaptive responses of plants to abiotic stresses. ABA-responsive element binding proteins (AREBs) are basic leucine zipper transcription factors that regulate the expression of downstream genes containing ABA-responsive elements (ABREs) in promoter regions. A novel ABI-like (ABA-insensitive) transcription factor gene, named TaABL1, containing a conserved basic leucine zipper (bZIP) domain was cloned from wheat. Southern blotting showed that three copies were present in the wheat genome. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that TaABL1 belonged to the AREB subfamily of the bZIP transcription factor family and was most closely related to ZmABI5 in maize and OsAREB2 in rice. Expression of TaABL1 was highly induced in wheat roots, stems, and leaves by ABA, drought, high salt, and low temperature stresses. TaABL1 was localized inside the nuclei of transformed wheat mesophyll protoplast. Overexpression of TaABL1 enhanced responses of transgenic plants to ABA and hastened stomatal closure under stress, thereby improving tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses. Furthermore, overexpression of TaABL1 upregulated or downregulated the expression of some stress-related genes controlling stomatal closure in transgenic plants under ABA and drought stress conditions, suggesting that TaABL1 might be a valuable genetic resource for transgenic molecular breeding.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Robert McIntosh (University of Sydney) and Dr. Xingguo Ye (Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) for modifying this manuscript. The work was funded in part by the National 863 High-tech Project (2012AA10A309), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31201200), and the International Cooperation Project of Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Science.

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  1. Yao-Feng Chen & Ming Chen

    Present address: Beijing Engineering and Technical Research Center for Hybrid Wheat, Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Science, Beijing, 100097, China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Agriculture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, 712100, China

    Dong-Bei Xu, Xue-Yin Li & Yao-Feng Chen

  2. National Key Facility for Crop Genetic Resources and Genetic Improvement (NFCRI), Key Laboratory of Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Improvement of Triticeae Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Beijing, 100081, China

    Shi-Qing Gao, You-Zhi Ma, Zhao-Shi Xu, Lian-Cheng Li & Ming Chen

  3. Beijing Engineering and Technical Research Center for Hybrid Wheat, Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Science, Beijing, 100097, China

    Shi-Qing Gao, Chang-Ping Zhao, Yi-Miao Tang & Xue-Yin Li

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  1. Dong-Bei Xu
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Dong-Bei Xu and Shi-Qing Gao contributed equally to this work.

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Supplementary Fig. 1

The sequence analysis of TaABL1 protein. A. The conserved domain analysis of TaABL1 protein with other homology proteins. B. Phylogenetic tree of TaABL1 and related proteins using MEGA 4.0 software. TaABL1 belongs to the A subfamily and exhibits high similarities to ZmABI5 (NP_001150949), EeABF6 (AED99724), HvABI5 (ADQ48070), WABI5 (BAD97366), Ntphi-2 (BAB61098), GmABL2 (XP_003526362), BdbZIP (XP_003574628), and SbbZIP (XP_002454604). (GIF 497 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 536 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 2

The EMSA analysis of TaABL1 protein. EB staining result of TaABL1 protein binding ABRE element on 12 % PAGE gel. Normal ABRE probe; Mutant ABRE probe; GST: glutathione S-transferase; TaABL1-GST: TaABL1 and GST fusion protein. The experiments were repeated three times. (JPEG 19 kb)

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Xu, DB., Gao, SQ., Ma, YZ. et al. ABI-like transcription factor gene TaABL1 from wheat improves multiple abiotic stress tolerances in transgenic plants. Funct Integr Genomics 14, 717–730 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10142-014-0394-z

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