Abstract
BackgroundCold stress is the main abiotic stress in rice, which seriously affects the growth and yield of rice. Identification of cold tolerance genes is of great significance for rice to solve these problems. GATA-family transcription factors involve diverse biological functions, however, their role in cold tolerance in rice remains unclear.ResultsIn this study, a GATA-type zinc finger transcription factor OsGATA16, which can improve cold tolerance, was isolated and characterized from rice. OsGATA16 belongs to OsGATA subfamily-II and contains 11 putative phosphorylation sites, a nuclear localization signal (NLS), and other several conserved domains. OsGATA16 was expressed in all plant tissues, with the strongest in panicles. It was induced by cold and ABA treatments, but was repressed by drought, cytokinin and JA, and acted as a transcriptional suppressor in the nucleus. Overexpression of OsGATA16 improves cold tolerance of rice at seedling stage. Under cold stress treatments, the transcription of four cold-related genes OsWRKY45–1, OsSRFP1, OsCYL4, and OsMYB30 was repressed in OsGATA16-overexpressing (OE) rice compared with wild-type (WT). Interestingly, OsGATA16 bound to the promoter of OsWRKY45–1 and repressed its expression. In addition, haplotype analysis showed that OsGATA16 polarized between the two major rice subspecies japonica and indica, and had a non-synonymous SNP8 (336G) associated with cold tolerance.ConclusionOsGATA16 is a GATA transcription factor, which improves cold tolerance at seedling stage in rice. It acts as a positive regulator of cold tolerance by repressing some cold-related genes such as OsWRKY45–1, OsSRFP1, OsCYL4 and OsMYB30. Additionally, OsGATA16 has a non-synonymous SNP8 (336G) associated with cold tolerance on CDS region. This study provides a theoretical basis for elucidating the mechanism of cold tolerance in rice and new germplasm resources for rice breeding.
Highlights
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important staple food crop that provides sustenance for more than half of the global population (Fairhurst and Dobermann 2002; Tang et al 2019)
OsGATA16 Encodes a GATA Class-B TF A GATA-type zinc finger Transcription factor, OsGATA16 (LOC_Os06g37450; NCBI name: OsGATA22), which related to cold stress was identified through bioinformatic screening
OsGATA16 belongs to Class-B of GATA subfamily-II (Behringer and Schwechheimer 2015), and contains 11 coldrelated putative phosphorylation sites, a highly conserved GATA-type zinc finger domain, an LLM domain as well as a nuclear localization signal (NLS) (Fig. 1a)
Summary
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important staple food crop that provides sustenance for more than half of the global population (Fairhurst and Dobermann 2002; Tang et al 2019). The increase of global populations and the consequent increase in food demand have prompted the expansion of rice production to less-suitable cultivation areas, and increased the probability of rice crops being subjected to severe environmental stresses (Zhang et al 2017). Low temperatures in China reduced rice yield by 3–5 hundred million tons, with severe impacts on grain security (Zhang et al 2017; Zhu et al 2015). GATA-family transcription factors involve diverse biological functions, their role in cold tolerance in rice remains unclear
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