Abstract
Cold stress is one of the most important abiotic stresses in rice. C2H2 zinc finger proteins play important roles in response to abiotic stresses in plants. In the present study, we isolated and functionally characterized a new C2H2 zinc finger protein transcription factor OsCTZFP8 in rice. OsCTZFP8 encodes a C2H2 zinc finger protein, which contains a typical zinc finger motif, as well as a potential nuclear localization signal (NLS) and a leucine-rich region (L-box). Expression of OsCTZFP8 was differentially induced by several abiotic stresses and was strongly induced by cold stress. Subcellular localization assay and yeast one-hybrid analysis revealed that OsCTZFP8 was a nuclear protein and has transactivation activity. To characterize the function of OsCTZFP8 in rice, the full-length cDNA of OsCTZFP8 was isolated and transgenic rice with overexpression of OsCTZFP8 driven by the maize ubiquitin promoter was generated using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Among 46 independent transgenic lines, 6 single-copy homozygous overexpressing lines were selected by Southern blot analysis and Basta resistance segregation assay in both T1 and T2 generations. Transgenic rice overexpressing OsCTZFP8 exhibited cold tolerant phenotypes with significantly higher pollen fertilities and seed setting rates than nontransgenic control plants. In addition, yield per plant of OsCTZFP8-expressing lines was significantly (p < 0.01) higher than that of nontransgenic control plants under cold treatments. These results demonstrate that OsCTZFP8 was a C2H2 zinc finger transcription factor that plays an important role in cold tolerance in rice.
Highlights
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the most important stable food crop that feeds more than two billion people worldwide
Comparisons of the amino acid sequences between OsCTZFP8 and other C2H2 zinc finger protein homologs in plants (O. sativa, Zea mays, Sorghum bicolor, and Arabidopsis thaliana) showed that the C2H2 zinc finger domains were highly conservative in these plant species (Figure 1(b))
To investigate the evolutionary relationship among plant C2H2 zinc finger proteins involved in stress responses, a phylogenetic tree was constructed with full-length amino acid sequences
Summary
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the most important stable food crop that feeds more than two billion people worldwide. Cold stress inhibits rice growth during all growth stages, ranging from vegetative to reproductive stages. Cold stress severely inhibits rice growth, such as seedling growth retardation, plant height, and tiller number reduction [1, 2]. The cold tolerance genes can be divided into three kinds according to the low temperature signal transduction pathway, including protein kinase genes, transcription factors, and functional genes. ICE-CBF-COR pathway plays an important role in plant resistance to cold stress [8,9,10,11]. ICE is a bHLH (basic helix-loop-helix) transcriptional activator, which can bind to a specific CBF promoter sequence at low temperatures and induces the expression of CBF genes, improving the cold
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