Abstract
Phosphorus (P) is one of the essential macronutrients, whose deficiency limits the growth and development of plants. In this study, we investigated the possible role of GmWRKY46 in the phosphate (Pi) starvation stress tolerance of soybean. GmWRKY46 belonged to the group III subfamily of the WRKY transcription factor family, which was localized in the nucleus and had transcriptional activator activity. GmWRKY46 could be strongly induced by Pi starvation, especially in soybean roots. Overexpression of GmWRKY46 significantly enhanced tolerance to Pi starvation and lateral root development in transgenic Arabidopsis. RNA-seq analysis showed that overexpression of GmWRKY46 led to change in many genes related to energy metabolisms, stress responses, and plant hormone signal transduction in transgenic Arabidopsis. Among these differential expression genes, we found that overexpression of AtAED1 alone could enhance the tolerance of transgenic Arabidopsis to Pi starvation. Y1H and ChIP-qPCR analyses showed that GmWRKY46 could directly bind to the W-box motif of the AtAED1 promoter in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, results from intact soybean composite plants with GmWRKY46 overexpression showed that GmWRKY46 was involved in hairy roots development and subsequently affected plant growth and Pi uptake. These results provide a basis for the molecular genetic breeding of soybean tolerant to Pi starvation.
Highlights
Phosphorus (P) is one of the most essential mineral nutrients required for the growth and development of plants and is a constituent of key molecules such as ATP, nucleic acids, and phospholipids (Chiou and Lin, 2011)
Studies have shown that AtWRKY46 regulates lateral roots development in Arabidopsis thaliana under osmotic/salt stress (Ding et al, 2015), and we found in a report that GmWRKY46 was highly expressed in soybean roots (Song et al, 2016)
A phylogenetic tree was constructed based on the GmWRKY46, and using a total of 72 WRKYs from Arabidopsis showed that GmWRKY46, AtWRKY30, AtWRKY41, AtWRKY46, AtWRKY53, AtWRKY54, AtWRKY55, and AtWRKY70 had high homology (Figure 1A)
Summary
Phosphorus (P) is one of the most essential mineral nutrients required for the growth and development of plants and is a constituent of key molecules such as ATP, nucleic acids, and phospholipids (Chiou and Lin, 2011). It plays a crucial role in energy generation, photosynthesis, glycolysis, respiration, protein activation, and stability. Plants meet their P requirement only by taking up inorganic phosphate (Pi) from the soil. In-depth research on the mechanism of how plants resist Pi starvation can provide effective references to future plant production
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