Abstract
BackgroundTrihelix transcription factor family is plant-specific and plays important roles in developmental processes. However, their function in abiotic stress response is largely unclear.ResultsWe studied one member GT-4 from Arabidopsis in relation to salt stress response. GT-4 expression is induced by salt stress and GT-4 protein is localized in nucleus and cytoplasm. GT-4 acts as a transcriptional activator and its C-terminal end is the activation domain. The protein can bind to the cis-elements GT-3 box, GT-3b box and MRE4. GT-4 confers enhanced salt tolerance in Arabidopsis likely through direct binding to the promoter and activation of Cor15A, in addition to possible regulation of other relevant genes. The gt-4 mutant shows salt sensitivity. TEM2, a member of AP2/ERF family was identified to interact with GT-4 in yeast two-hybrid, BiFC and Co-IP assays. Loss-of-function of TEM2 exerts no significant difference on salt tolerance or Cor15A expression in Arabidopsis. However, double mutant gt-4/tem2 shows greater sensitivity to salt stress and lower transcript level of Cor15A than gt-4 single mutant. GT-4 plus TEM2 can synergistically increase the promoter activity of Cor15A.ConclusionsGT-4 interacts with TEM2 and then co-regulates the salt responsive gene Cor15A to improve salt stress tolerance.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-014-0339-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Trihelix transcription factor family is plant-specific and plays important roles in developmental processes
GT-4 encoded a protein of 372 amino acids and the protein had a trihelix DNA binding domain in the N-terminus and a variable C-terminus
Arabidopsis seedlings were treated with salt stress and the expression of GT-4 was clearly induced by high salinity (Figure 1a)
Summary
Trihelix transcription factor family is plant-specific and plays important roles in developmental processes. Their function in abiotic stress response is largely unclear. Transcription factor genes are important for adaptation to these stresses. Several classes of transcription factors have been found to play important roles in plant stress tolerance through binding of cis-acting elements in the promoter region of stress-responsive genes [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. The trihelix transcription factor family is defined according to the highly conserved trihelix domain which binds to the GT-elements [10,11]. Compared with other transcription factors, e.g. MYB, AP2/EREBP, bHLH, NAC and WRKY families with more than 100 members in Arabidopsis, trihelix family
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