Abstract
Salinity is a significant environmental challenge that detrimentally affects the yield and quality of plants. The Argonaute (AGO) family proteins are core effectors of RNAi pathways in eukaryotes. Different AGOs bind different types of sRNAs and participate in different silencing pathways and physiological processes. The Argonaute1 (AGO1) protein binds microRNAs and post-transcriptionally inhibits gene expression in the cytoplasm. In addition, AGO1 directly binds to the promoter region of genes to promote transcription in the stress responses. In this study, we isolated the AGO family gene MdAGO1 from apple (Malus domestica). MdAGO1 encodes a protein located in the nucleus and cytoplasm. MdAGO1 expression was significantly induced by salt stress. We employed MdAGO1-RNAi transgenic apple plants, MdAGO1 overexpressing transgenic apple calli, and Arabidopsis thaliana to investigate the role of MdAGO1 in salt stress. We exposed all of the genotypes to salt stress and showed that MdAGO1 played a role in scavenging reactive oxygen species, maintaining ion balance, and increasing the accumulation of polyamines in the plants under salt stress. In addition, the MdAGO1-RNAi apple lines exhibited low photosynthetic capacity under salt stress. Taken together, these results reveal that MdAGO1 positively regulates apple salt tolerance.
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