Abstract
Auxin Regulated Gene involved in Organ Size (ARGOS) is significantly and positively associated with organ size and is involved in abiotic stress responses in plants. However, no studies on wheat ARGOS genes have been reported to date. In the present study, three TaARGOS homoeologous genes were isolated and located on chromosomes 4A, 4B, and 4D of bread wheat, all of which are highly conserved in wheat and its wild relatives. Comparisons of gene expression in different tissues demonstrated that the TaARGOSs were mainly expressed in the stem. Furthermore, the TaARGOS transcripts were significantly induced by drought, salinity, and various phytohormones. Transient expression of the TaARGOS-D protein in wheat protoplasts showed that TaARGOS-D localized to the endoplasmic reticulum. Moreover, overexpression of TaARGOS-D in Arabidopsis resulted in an enhanced germination rate, larger rosette diameter, increased rosette leaf area, and higher silique number than in wild-type (WT) plants. The roles of TaARGOS-D in the control of plant growth were further studied via RNA-seq, and it was found that 105 genes were differentially expressed; most of these genes were involved in ‘developmental processes.’ Interestingly, we also found that overexpression of TaARGOS-D in Arabidopsis improved drought and salinity tolerance and insensitivity to ABA relative to that in WT plants. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the TaARGOSs are involved in seed germination, seedling growth, and abiotic stress tolerance.
Highlights
An explosion in the global demand and consumption of agricultural crops for food, feed, and fuel, originating from the rapid increases in the global population and emerging economies, has made increased crop productivity a primary goal of breeding programs (Rosegrant and Cline, 2003; Edgerton, 2009)
Amplification products were observed in four Chinese Spring (CS) NT lines, with the exception of NT4A4B and NT4A4D, indicating that the TaARGOS amplified by the TaARGOS-AF1/TaARGOSAR1 primer set was located on chromosome 4A, and this gene was designated TaARGOS-A (KX768731)
We isolated and characterized the TaARGOSs, which are the homologs of reported AUXIN REGULATED GENE INVOLVED IN ORGAN SIZE (ARGOS) genes in Arabidopsis, rice and maize and encode ORGAN SIZE RELATED (OSR) family proteins
Summary
An explosion in the global demand and consumption of agricultural crops for food, feed, and fuel, originating from the rapid increases in the global population and emerging economies, has made increased crop productivity a primary goal of breeding programs (Rosegrant and Cline, 2003; Edgerton, 2009). The ORGAN SIZE RELATED (OSR) family is known to promote plant organ growth and regulate the expression of organ size genes (Hu et al, 2003, 2006; Feng et al, 2011; Qin et al, 2014). There are four OSR homologs in Arabidopsis, and other members of this family (OSR1 and OSR2) are known to promote plant organ growth when overexpressed in Arabidopsis (Feng et al, 2011; Qin et al, 2014). Maize plants overexpressing ZmARGOS8 exhibit a greater grain yield than WT controls under both drought stress and well-watered conditions (Shi et al, 2015).
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