Relationship between WCS120 Protein Family Accumulation and Frost Tolerance in Wheat Cultivars Grown under Different Temperature Treatments

Pavel Vítámvás,Ilja Tom Prášil,Miroslav Klíma,Jan Vítámvás

doi:10.3390/plants10061114

Pavel Vítámvás, Ilja Tom Prášil + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10061114

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Abstract

Frost tolerance (FT) is generally acquired after exposure of plants to low, but non-freezing temperatures, where it is associated with the accumulation of COR proteins. The aim of the study was to reveal the effect of different temperature treatments (25, 17, 9 and 4 °C) on accumulation of cold-regulated dehydrins, dry weight content, and the development of FT in five wheat cultivars of different frost-tolerances in detail. The levels of cold-regulated dehydrins, WCS120 proteins in wheat were determined by immunoblot analysis, probed with an anti-dehydrin antibody. The lower the growth temperature: the higher the level of frost tolerance, dry weight content, and dehydrin accumulation, in all cultivars. There was a significant correlation between the level of induced FT and the accumulation of WCS120 proteins in cultivars grown at lower temperatures (9 and 4 °C). Moreover, the highly frost-tolerant wheat cultivars (as opposed to the lower-tolerant) accumulated higher levels of WCS120 proteins at 17 °C, a temperature at which it was not possible to differentiate between them via a frost test. Here, we demonstrated the possibility to distinguish differently frost-tolerant cultivars grown at different temperatures by the accumulation of different members of WCS120 family.

Highlights

The ability of winter habit crops to survive winter is a major factor affecting the area of their cultivation
We demonstrated the possibility to distinguish differently frost-tolerant cultivars grown at different temperatures by the accumulation of different members of Keywords: cold acclimation; LT50; dehydrins; Triticum aestivum; controlled condition
The polyclonal anti-dehydrin antibody bound to the most abundant members of WCS120 proteins, which were identified according to their molecular weights as WCS200 (200 kDa), WCS180 (180 kDa), WCS66 (66 kDa), WCS120 (50 kDa) and WCS40 (40 kDa; Figure 1B)

Summary

Introduction

The ability of winter habit crops to survive winter is a major factor affecting the area of their cultivation. One of their main winter survival traits is the level of frost tolerance (FT). Global climate change could lead to deacclimation of winter crops in winter due to warmer period which can result in serious frost damage by subsequent freezing temperatures. The evaluation of frost tolerance by LT50 (lethal temperaturethe temperature at which 50% of the leaves were killed) is a time-consuming procedure; including weeks of cold-acclimation, days of exposure of the plants to the scale of freezing temperatures, and weeks of regeneration in order to obtain the LT50 (e.g., [2,3]). Alternative methods, in order to do faster pre-screening of higher frost tolerant plants, are required by plant breeders

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