Abstract
The quality and yields of strawberry plants are seriously affected by abiotic stress every year. NAC (NAM, ATAF, CUC) transcription factors are plant-specific, having various functions in plant development and response to stress. In our study, FaNAC2 from strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa, cultivar “Benihoppe”) was isolated and found to be a member of the ATAF sub-family, belonging to the NAC family of transcription factors. FaNAC2 was strongly expressed in the shoot apical meristem and older leaves of strawberries, and was induced by cold, high salinity, and drought stress. To investigate how FaNAC2 functions in plant responses to abiotic stress, transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana plants ectopically overexpressing FaNAC2 were generated. The transgenic plants grew better under salt and cold stress, and, during simulated drought treatment, these transgenic lines not only grew better, but also showed higher seed germination rates than wild-type plants. Gene expression analysis revealed that key genes in proline biosynthesis pathways were up-regulated in FaNAC2 overexpression lines, while its catabolic pathway genes were down-regulated and proline was accumulated more with the overexpression of FaNAC2 after stress treatments. Furthermore, the gene expression of abscisic acid biosynthesis was also promoted. Our results demonstrate that FaNAC2 plays an important positive role in response to different abiotic stresses and may be further utilized to improve the stress tolerance of strawberry plants.
Highlights
Agricultural crops grow in a constantly changing environment and are often subjected to abiotic stresses such as drought, heat, cold, and high salinity
FaNAC2 Encodes an activation factor (ATAF) Protein that Belongs to the NAC Family
It was found that FaNAC2 has the closest relationship with AT1G01720, which encodes an ATAF sub-group protein, and is named AtNAC2 (Figure 1A)
Summary
Agricultural crops grow in a constantly changing environment and are often subjected to abiotic stresses such as drought, heat, cold, and high salinity. These stresses are associated with increased accumulation of certain deleterious chemicals like reactive oxygen species (ROS), which affect the stability of cell membranes and the structure of proteins, leading to reduced crop yield and even death [1,2]. The NAC [No apical meristem (NAM), Arabidopsis transcription activation factor (ATAF), and Cup-shaped cotyledon (CUC)] superfamily is one of the largest groups of plant-specific TFs, which play an important role in various stages of plant growth and development, and participate in responses to biotic and abiotic stress [6,7,8,9,10]. Drought-induced genes ANAC019, ANAC055, and RD26/ANAC072, when overexpressed in Arabidopsis, improved
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