ABA Inducible Rice Protein Phosphatase 2C Confers ABA Insensitivity and Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Arabidopsis

Arabidopsis PP2C belonging to group A have been extensively worked out and known to negatively regulate ABA signaling. However, rice (Oryza sativa) orthologs of Arabidopsis group A PP2C are scarcely characterized functionally. We have identified a group A PP2C from rice (OsPP108), which is highly inducible under ABA, salt and drought stresses and localized predominantly in the nucleus. Genetic analysis revealed that Arabidopsis plants overexpressing OsPP108 are highly insensitive to ABA and tolerant to high salt and mannitol stresses during seed germination, root growth and overall seedling growth. At adult stage, OsPP108 overexpression leads to high tolerance to salt, mannitol and drought stresses with far better physiological parameters such as water loss, fresh weight, chlorophyll content and photosynthetic potential (Fv/Fm) in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Expression profile of various stress marker genes in OsPP108 overexpressing plants revealed interplay of ABA dependent and independent pathway for abiotic stress tolerance. Overall, this study has identified a potential rice group A PP2C, which regulates ABA signaling negatively and abiotic stress signaling positively. Transgenic rice plants overexpressing this gene might provide an answer to the problem of low crop yield and productivity during adverse environmental conditions.     

Soybean GmbZIP44, GmbZIP62 and GmbZIP78 genes function as negative regulator of ABA signaling and confer salt and freezing tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis

From soybean plant, 131 bZIP genes were identified and named as GmbZIPs. The GmbZIPs can be classified into ten groups and more than one third of these GmbZIPs are responsive to at least one of the four treatments including ABA, salt, drought and cold stresses. Previous studies have shown that group A bZIP proteins are involved in ABA and stress signaling. We now chose four non-group A genes to study their features. The four proteins GmbZIP44, GmbZIP46, GmbZIP62 and GmbZIP78 belong to the group S, I, C and G, respectively, and can bind to GLM (GTGAGTCAT), ABRE (CCACGTGG) and PB-like (TGAAAA) elements with differential affinity in both the yeast one-hybrid assay and in vitro gel-shift analysis. GmbZIP46 can form homodimer or heterodimer with GmbZIP62 or GmMYB76. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing the GmbZIP44, GmbZIP62 or GmbZIP78 showed reduced ABA sensitivity. However, all the transgenic plants were more tolerant to salt and freezing stresses when compared with the Col plants. The GmbZIP44, GmbZIP62 and GmbZIP78 may function in ABA signaling through upregulation of ABI1 and ABI2 and play roles in stress tolerance through regulation of various stress-responsive genes. These results indicate that GmbZIP44, GmbZIP62 and GmbZIP78 are negative regulators of ABA signaling and function in salt and freezing tolerance.     

2个慈竹bZIP基因的克隆、生物信息学分析及其诱导表达

从慈竹笋转录组数据库中筛选并克隆出2个bZIP基因（BebZIP2和BebZIP6）进行生物信息学分析。分析结果表明,它们编码序列长度分别为504和720 bp,编码167个和239个氨基酸,BebZIP2和BebZIP6属于bZIP相关蛋白,与水稻OsbZIP52/RISBZ5蛋白聚在一枝。组织表达分析表明,这2个慈竹BebZIP基因在慈竹笋、茎、展开叶和未展开叶等部位均有表达,属于组成型表达,同一基因在不同组织中的表达量差异较大,表达量的大小为未展开叶 > 展开叶 > 茎 > 笋。对慈竹幼苗进行ABA、NaCl和PEG6000非生物胁迫处理,结果表明,BebZIP2和BebZIP6对盐、干旱和ABA胁迫均具有不同程度的响应。