Abstract
Sucrose non-fermenting 1-related protein kinase 2 (SnRK2) family members play crucial roles in plant abiotic stress response. However, the precise mechanism underlying the function of SnRKs has not been thoroughly elucidated in plants. In this research, a novel SnRK2 gene, TaSnRK2.9 was cloned and characterized from common wheat. The expression of TaSnRK2.9 was upregulated by polyethylene glycol (PEG), NaCl, H2O2, abscisic acid (ABA), methyl jasmonate (MeJA), and ethrel treatments. TaSnRK2.9 was mainly expressed in wheat young root, stamen, pistil, and lemma. Overexpressing TaSnRK2.9 in transgenic tobacco enhanced plants’ tolerance to drought and salt stresses both in young seedlings and mature plants with improved survival rate, seed germination rate, and root length. Physiological analyses suggest that TaSnRK2.9 improved antioxidant system such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), and glutathione (GSH) to reduce the H2O2 content under drought or salt stress. Additionally, TaSnRK2.9 overexpression plants had elevated ABA content, implying that the function of TaSnRK2.9 may be ABA-dependent. Moreover, TaSnRK2.9 increased the expression of some ROS-related, ABA-related, and stress-response genes under osmotic or salt treatment. TaSnRK2.9 could interact with NtABF2 in yeast two-hybrid assay, and increased the expression of NtABF2 under mannitol or NaCl treatment in transgenic tobacco plants. In conclusion, overexpression of TaSnRK2.9 in tobacco conferred plants tolerance to drought and salt stresses through enhanced ROS scavenging ability, ABA-dependent signal transduction, and specific SnRK-ABF interaction.
Highlights
Abiotic stresses such as drought and high salinity severely affect plants growth, development, and crop productivity (Ruizlozano et al, 2012)
Sequence blast using the Ensembl Plants database2 showed that TaSnRK2.9 is located on wheat 5A chromosome
With H2O2, abscisic acid (ABA), methyl jasmonate (MeJA), and ethrel treatments, the expression of TaSnRK2.9 was gradually elevated by 4.2-fold at 12 h, 2.2fold at 12 h, 7.3-fold at 6 h, and 2.8-fold at 6 h, respectively. These results indicate that the expression of TaSnRK2.9 is responsive to polyethylene glycol (PEG), NaCl, H2O2, ABA, MeJA, and ethrel, implying that TaSnRK2.9 may play a role in abiotic stress response
Summary
Abiotic stresses such as drought and high salinity severely affect plants growth, development, and crop productivity (Ruizlozano et al, 2012). To cope with such abiotic stresses, plants have evolved a series of complex physiological mechanisms such as ROS detoxification, ABA signaling pathway, ion balance, and osmosis regulation (Zhang et al, 2018). The SnRK2 plays a key role in plant stress signal transduction pathway. SnRK1 mainly regulates carbon and nitrogen balance, while SnRK2 and SnRK3, which are plant-specific, play an essential role in stress signal transduction (Hrabak et al, 2003)
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