Abstract
Plant-specific YABBY (YAB) transcription factors play multiple roles in plant growth and development process. However, no comprehensive study has been performed in grapevines, especially to determine their roles in berry development and abiotic stress response. A total of seven VviYABs allocated to six chromosomal positions in grapevines were identified and classified into five subfamilies based on phylogenetic and structural analysis. Promoter element analysis and tissue-specific transcriptional response of VviYABs suggested that VviYABs might play vital roles in plant growth and development. VviYAB1, 2, 3, and 5 showed significantly higher expression levels in vegetative/green organs than in mature/woody tissues, implying that VviYABs might be involved in the regulatory switch from immature to mature developmental phases. The expression of VviYAB1, 2, 3, and VviFAS were gradually downregulated during berry developmental and ripening, which can be considered as putative molecular biomarkers between vegetative/green and mature/woody samples, and were used to identify key developmental and metabolic processes in grapevines. Furthermore, VviYAB1 expression was not markedly increased by gibberellic acid (GA3) treatment alone, but displayed significant upregulation when GA3 in combination with N-(2-chloro-4-pyridyl)-N′-phenylurea (CPPU) were applied, suggesting an involvement of VviYAB1 in fruit expansion by mediating cytokinin signaling pathway. Additionally, microarray and RNA-seq data suggested that VviYABs showed transcriptional regulation in response to various abiotic and biotic stresses, including salt, drought, Bois Noir, Erysiphe necator, and GLRaV-3 infection. Overall, our results provide a better understanding of the classification and functions of VviYABs during berry development and in response to abiotic and biotic stresses in grapevines.
Highlights
YABBY (YAB) is a small transcription factor gene family, which is specific seed plants (Bowman and Smyth, 1999; Shamimuzzaman and Vodkin, 2013)
To reveal the putative roles of VviYABs during fruit development and ripening, we firstly focused on the expression profiles of VviYAB genes from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets (GSE98923) (Fasoli et al, 2018), which contained 13 different developmental stages from fruit set to full maturity (Figure 5A and Supplementary Table S5)
Numerous cis-acting elements and tissue expression analysis indicated that VviYABs were involved in complex regulatory networks controlling growth, development, and responses to abiotic and biotic stresses
Summary
YABBY (YAB) is a small transcription factor gene family, which is specific seed plants (Bowman and Smyth, 1999; Shamimuzzaman and Vodkin, 2013). FIL, YAB2, YAB3, and YAB5 function redundantly to control the development of lateral organs (Siegfried et al, 1999; Yamada et al, 2011; Yang et al, 2018). INO plays a crucial role in the regulation of the outer integument growth (Villanueva et al, 1999). In rice, both OsYAB1 and OsYAB4 participate in controlling the gibberellin pathway, and overexpression of the rice OsYAB1 and OsYAB4 leads to a semidwarf phenotype and increases in the number of stamens (Dai et al, 2007; Yang et al, 2016)
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