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Elucidating the functional role of heat stress transcription factor A6b (TaHsfA6b) in linking heat stress response and the unfolded protein response in wheat

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Abstract

Key message

TaHsfA6b-4D relocalizes intracellularly upon heat stress and play a significant role in linking the heat stress response to unfolded-protein response so as to maintain cellular homeostasis.

Abstract

Heat stress transcription factors (Hsfs) play a crucial role in protecting the plants against heat stress (HS). In case of wheat, TaHsfA6b-4D (earlier known as TaHsfA2d) has been identified as a seed preferential transcription factor and its role has been shown in various abiotic stresses such as heat, salt and drought stress. In the present study, a homeologue of TaHsfA6b gene (TaHsfA6b-4A) was identified and was found to be transcriptionally inactive but it localized to the nucleus. Interestingly, TaHsfA6b-4D localized to the endoplasmic reticulum-Golgi complex and peroxisomes under non-stress conditions, but was observed to accumulate in the nucleus upon HS. The expression of TaHsfA6b-4D was upregulated by dithiothreitol (DTT), which is a known ER stress inducer. Consistent with this, Arabidopsis transgenic plants overexpressing TaHsfA6b-4D performed better on DTT containing media, which further corroborated with the increased expression of ER stress marker genes in these transgenic plants in comparison to the wild type plants. Thus, these studies together suggest that TaHsfA6b-4D may relocalize intracellularly upon heat stress and may play a significant role in linking the unfolded-protein response with heat stress response so as to maintain protein homeostasis inside the cell under heat stress.

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Data availability

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Abbreviations

AHA:

Aromatic, hydrophobic and acidic amino acid residues

DBD:

DNA binding domain

DTT:

Dithiothreitol

ER:

Endoplasmic reticulum

HS:

Heat stress

Hsf:

Heat stress transcription factor

HSR:

Heat stress response

NLS:

Nuclear localization signal

OD:

Oligomerization domain

UPR:

Unfolded protein response

WT:

Wildtype

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Funding

SM and HS are thankful to the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and University Grant Commission (UGC) for fellowships. This work has been supported by grants from DBT and JC Bose fellowship award, Science and Engineering Research Board, Government of India, for research support.

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Author notes

  1. Shaloo Meena and Harsha Samtani have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Molecular Biology, University of Delhi South Campus, Benito Juarez Road, New Delhi, 110021, India

    Shaloo Meena, Harsha Samtani & Paramjit Khurana

Authors
  1. Shaloo Meena
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  2. Harsha Samtani
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  3. Paramjit Khurana
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Contributions

SM and HS conducted the experiments. PK conceived the idea and provided logistic support.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paramjit Khurana.

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Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

11103_2022_1252_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 1 (TIF 868.2 kb)—Confirmation of Arabidopsis transgenics: (A) PCR with TaHsfA6b-4D specific primers, (B) hygromycin specific primers, and (C) overexpression checked with qRT-PCR using TaHsfA2d primers

11103_2022_1252_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 2 (TIF 472.5 kb)—Expression analysis of TaHsfA6b homeologues in different developmental stages of wheat. Heatmap showing the relative expression profile of TaHsfA6b-4D and TaHsfA6b-4A in different tissues of wheat

11103_2022_1252_MOESM3_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 3 (TIF 1668.2 kb)—Comparison of three-dimensional structure of protein of TaHsfA6b-4D and TaHsfA6b-4A from Triticum aestivum, HsfA2.1 and HsfA2.3 from Arabidopsis thaliana and HsfA2dI and HsfA2dII from Oryza sativa. The structures were predicted using Pyre2 web portal

11103_2022_1252_MOESM4_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 4 (TIF 256.0 kb)—Depiction of NLS and ER signal motifs. The presence of ER retention signals, bilysine motifs KXKXX and RXR motif, in the TaHsfA6b-4D protein sequences are depicted by the highlighted residues in the red color

Supplementary material 5 (XLSX 10.5 kb)—List of primers used in the study

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Meena, S., Samtani, H. & Khurana, P. Elucidating the functional role of heat stress transcription factor A6b (TaHsfA6b) in linking heat stress response and the unfolded protein response in wheat. Plant Mol Biol 108, 621–634 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-022-01252-1

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