Abstract
Plants have developed a number of survival strategies which are significant for enhancing their adaptation to various biotic and abiotic stress factors. At the transcriptome level, G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are of great significance, enabling the plants to detect a wide range of endogenous and exogenous signals which are employed by the plants in regulating various responses in development and adaptation. In this research work, we carried out genome-wide analysis of target of Myb1 (TOM1), a member of the GPCR gene family. The functional role of TOM1 in salt stress tolerance was studied using a transgenic Arabidopsis plants over-expressing the gene. By the use of the functional domain PF06454, we obtained 16 TOM genes members in Gossypium hirsutum, 9 in Gossypium arboreum, and 11 in Gossypium raimondii. The genes had varying physiochemical properties, and it is significant to note that all the grand average of hydropathy (GRAVY) values were less than one, indicating that all are hydrophobic in nature. In all the genes analysed here, both the exonic and intronic regions were found. The expression level of Gh_A07G0747 (GhTOM) was significantly high in the transgenic lines as compared to the wild type; a similar trend in expression was observed in all the salt-related genes tested in this study. The study in epidermal cells confirmed the localization of the protein coded by the gene TOM1 in the plasma membrane. Analysis of anti-oxidant enzymes showed higher concentrations of antioxidants in transgenic lines and relatively lower levels of oxidant substances such as H2O2. The low malondialdehyde (MDA) level in transgenic lines indicated that the transgenic lines had relatively low level of oxidative damage compared to the wild types. The results obtained indicate that Gh_A07G0747 (GhTOM) can be a putative target gene for enhancing salt stress tolerance in plants and could be exploited in the future for the development of salt stress-tolerant cotton cultivars.
Highlights
Because plants are sessile, they are strongly affected by the ever-deteriorating environmental conditions [1]
The G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) play key roles in cellular transduction, and are considered as critical regulators in cellular processes. The fact that their dysfunction can result in several diseases has made GPCRs the targets of the majority of the currently-prescribed drugs [8]. It seems that the signals are mostly perceived at the level of membrane, and transmembrane events are the likely routes for signal generation and transduction
We identified a total of 36 genes in all three cotton genomes, 16 of G. hirsutum, 9 G. arboreum, and 11 genes of G. raimondii
Summary
They are strongly affected by the ever-deteriorating environmental conditions [1]. Plants have developed a number of survival strategies which are significant for enhancing their adaptation to various biotic and abiotic stress factors [2]. Being that abiotic stresses are dynamic and complex in nature, plants have developed complex mechanisms which encompass changes at the transcriptome, cellular, and physiological levels [3]. G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are of great significance, enabling the plants to detect a wide range of endogenous and exogenous signals employed by the plants in the regulation of various responses in development and adaptation [4]. The external signals include all the abiotic and biotic factors which have direct effects on the plants’ growth and development, such as light, temperature, mechanical perturbations (e.g., wind), humidity, CO2 , edaphic factors (e.g., soil water and nutrients), and gravity. When plants are exposed to primary stimuli such as water deficit, salt stress, light, hormones, and pathogen-derived elicitors, the primary stimuli can cause membrane depolarization of the plant cells within a few seconds, as a result of early Ca2+ influx and anion efflux through ion channels [6]
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