Abstract
WRKY transcription factors are one of the important families in plants, and have important roles in plant growth, abiotic stress responses, and defense regulation. In this study, we isolated a WRKY gene, ItfWRKY70, from the wild relative of sweet potato Ipomoea trifida (H.B.K.) G. Don. This gene was highly expressed in leaf tissue and strongly induced by 20% PEG6000 and 100 μM abscisic acid (ABA). Subcellar localization analyses indicated that ItfWRKY70 was localized in the nucleus. Overexpression of ItfWRKY70 significantly increased drought tolerance in transgenic sweet potato plants. The content of ABA and proline, and the activity of SOD and POD were significantly increased, whereas the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) and H2O2 were decreased in transgenic plants under drought stress. Overexpression of ItfWRKY70 up-regulated the genes involved in ABA biosynthesis, stress-response, ROS-scavenging system, and stomatal aperture in transgenic plants under drought stress. Taken together, these results demonstrated that ItfWRKY70 plays a positive role in drought tolerance by accumulating the content of ABA, regulating stomatal aperture and activating the ROS scavenging system in sweet potato.
Highlights
The growth of plants is constantly challenged by abiotic stress conditions such as drought, heat, cold and salinity [1,2]
Phylogenetic analysis showed that ItfWRKY70 has a close relationship with that of Ipomoea nil (Figure 1b)
ItfWRKY70 was significantly induced by (Figure 2b). in vitro, that were treated with 20% PEG6000 and 100 μM abscisic acid (ABA) for 0, 0.5, 1, 3, 6, 12, 24 and ABA, and peaked at 0.5 h with 2.91-fold, and 3 h with respectively h. These results showed that the expression of ItfWRKY70
Summary
The growth of plants is constantly challenged by abiotic stress conditions such as drought, heat, cold and salinity [1,2]. Drought stress causes severe damage to plants and reduces crop yield, and droughts are likely to be more severe and long lasting because of global warming [3,4]. It is urgent to improve the tolerance to drought stress for enhancing crop productivity. Genetic engineering has great potential in improving drought tolerance in plants [5,6,7]. Transcription factors (TFs) are generally the earliest response to abiotic stresses; they act as significant coordinators of the transmission signal and regulate the expression of downstream stress-responsive genes [8].
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