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Silencing of the SlZF-31 gene decreases the salt stress tolerance and drought tolerance of tomato

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Abstract

The SlZF-31 gene is a member of the tomato C2H2 transcription factor family. Previous studies have shown that SlZF-31 gene expression is upregulated under drought stress and salt stress, but the specific function of this gene in tomato plants in response to these two kinds of stress is still unclear. To further explore the function of the SlZF-31 gene in tomato under drought stress and salt stress, we employed the virus-induced gene silencing method to reduce the expression of the SlZF-31 gene in tomato. The results showed that TRV2-SlZF-31 plants had higher levels of wilt and stem bending than CK and CK-TRV2 plants under drought and salt stress. The ABA content of TRV2-SlZF-31 plants were lower than those of CK and CK-TRV2 plants. The analysis of physiological indexes showed that the SOD and POD activity and the proline content of TRV2-SlZF-31 plants were lower than those of CK and CK-TRV2 plants, while the MDA content of TRV2-SLlZF-31 plants was higher than those of CK and CK-TRV2 plants. The accumulation of H2O2 and O2− in TRV2-SlZF-31 plants was greater than those in CK and CK-TRV2 plants. The values of the chlorophyll fluorescence parameters (ΦII and qL) of TRV2-SlZF-31 plants were significantly lower than those of CK and CK-TRV2 plants. These results showed that the silencing of the SlZF-31 gene reduces the drought resistance and salt tolerance of tomato. The finding of this study are expected to provide theoretical support for the study of abiotic stress in tomato.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by Hundreds of millions project science and technology major special project (Grant No. 2019ZX16B02); National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32072589); China Agriculture Research System (Grant No. CARS-23-A-16); Postdoctoral science foundation of heilongjiang province (Grant LBH-Z19046) and China postdoctoral science foundation grant (Grant No. 2018 M630333).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Improvement of Horticultural Crops (Northeast Region), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, College of Horticulture and LandscapeArchitecture, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, 150030, People’s Republic of China

    Tong Pei, Yufang Bao, Tairu Wu, Ziyu Wang, Yue Wang, Qifeng Liu, Huanhuan Yang, Jingbin Jiang, He Zhang, Jingfu Li, Tingting Zhao & Xiangyang Xu

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  1. Tong Pei
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  2. Yufang Bao
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  3. Tairu Wu
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  4. Ziyu Wang
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  5. Yue Wang
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  9. He Zhang
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  11. Tingting Zhao
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Contributions

TP: Conceived and wrote the manuscript; YB, TW, ZW, YW, QL: analyzed the data; HY, JJ, HZ, JL: Revise the English manuscript; TZ, XX: Review of manuscript.

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Correspondence to Tingting Zhao or Xiangyang Xu.

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Communicated by Joyce Van Eck.

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Pei, T., Bao, Y., Wu, T. et al. Silencing of the SlZF-31 gene decreases the salt stress tolerance and drought tolerance of tomato. Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult 146, 191–201 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-021-02048-9

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