Abstract
Small heat shock proteins (smHSPs) play important and extensive roles in plant defenses against abiotic stresses. We cloned a gene for a smHSP from the David Lily (Lilium davidii (E. H. Wilson) Raffill var. Willmottiae), which we named LimHSP16.45 based on its protein molecular weight. Its expression was induced by many kinds of abiotic stresses in both the lily and transgenic plants of Arabidopsis. Heterologous expression enhanced cell viability of the latter under high temperatures, high salt, and oxidative stress, and heat shock granules (HSGs) formed under heat or salinity treatment. Assays of enzymes showed that LimHSP16.45 overexpression was related to greater activity by superoxide dismutase and catalase in transgenic lines. Therefore, we conclude that heterologous expression can protect plants against abiotic stresses by preventing irreversible protein aggregation, and by scavenging cellular reactive oxygen species.
Highlights
Environmental degradation and abiotic stresses are limiting factors in food production and sustainability
These results indicated that LimHSP16.45 has roles in plant responses to multiple abiotic stresses
LimHSP16.45-GFP is heterologously expressed in the cell membrane and endomembrane system of transgenic Arabidopsis
Summary
Environmental degradation and abiotic stresses are limiting factors in food production and sustainability. In response to high temperatures and other abiotic stresses, all organisms universally respond by accumulating heat shock proteins (HSPs) [1]. These HSPs are mainly involved in peptide-folding, protein assembly and transport, protection against irreversible protein denaturation, maintaining the protein in a normal folding state, promoting the degradation of mis-folded proteins under various stresses, and they all can be summed as having ‘‘chaperone-like’’ activities [2,3,4,5,6]. Plants contain a wide array of smHSPs that are divided into six classes based on their sequence alignments and immunological cross-reactivity. Three of these classes (CI, CII, and CIII) are located in the cytoplasm or nucleus [8]. The others exist in the endoplasmic reticulum [9], mitochondria and plastids [10]
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