Abstract
Cold is an abiotic stress that can greatly affect the growth and survival of plants. Here, we reported that an <i>AP2/ERF</i> family gene, <i>BplERF1</i>, isolated from <i>Betula platyphylla</i> played a contributing role in cold stress tolerance. Overexpression of <i>BplERF1</i> in <i>B. platyphylla</i> transgenic lines enhanced cold stress tolerance by increasing the scavenging capability and reducing H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> and malondialdehyde (MDA) content in transgenic plants. Construction of BplERF-mediated multilayered hierarchical gene regulatory network (ML-hGRN), using Top-down GGM algorithm and the transcriptomic data of <i>BplERF1</i> overexpression lines, led to the identification of five candidate target genes of BplERF1 which include <i>MPK20</i>, <i>ERF9</i>, <i>WRKY53</i>, <i>WRKY70</i>, and <i>GIA1</i>. All of them were then verified to be the true target genes of BplERF1 by chromatin-immunoprecipitation PCR (ChIP-PCR) assay. Our results indicate that BplERF1 is a positive regulator of cold tolerance and is capable of exerting regulation on the expression of cold signaling and regulatory genes, causing mitigation of reactive oxygen species.
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