受非生物胁迫和稻瘟病胁迫双重诱导的OsWRKY转录因子基因表达特征分析

OsWRKY 转录因子在水稻非生物胁迫和抗病反应中具有相当重要的调节作用。为阐明其调节作用提供依据,研究了疑似功能广泛的 OsWRKY 转录因子表达谱,采用五个 OsWRKY 转录因子基因,即 Os-WRKY7、OsWRKY11、OsWRKY30、OsWRKY70和 OsWRKY89,利用 real-time PCR 研究各种非生物胁迫和稻瘟菌胁迫诱导表达特征,以及各种激素对 OsWRKY 表达量的影响。所采用的五个基因均受到稻瘟菌胁迫的诱导,而且各种非生物胁迫也能不同程度地诱导其表达。在各个激素处理下,有些被诱导或被抑制,也有未受影响。五个 OsWRKY 基因均有可能参与稻瘟病胁迫响应。其中 OsWRKY7和 OsWRKY70可能是在JA 和 SA 相互拮抗调控下参与,OsWRKY89可能是通过非本研究涉及的其他激素途径参与。在非生物胁迫方面,OsWRKY7可能通过 ABA 途径参与干旱、高盐和极端温度胁迫;OsWRKY11有可能参与高盐胁迫;OsWRKY30有可能参与高盐和高温胁迫;OsWRKY70可能参与高盐、干旱和极端温度胁迫;OsWRKY89可能参与高温胁迫,但并不是通过本研究所涉及的四种激素途径。     

Functional characterization of transposon-tagged abiotic stress-responsive rice genes and their molecular polymorphisms among various stress-tolerant genotypes

Dissociation (Ds) insertional mutagenesis has been regarded as an efficient tool to generate insertion mutants for functional genomics and molecular breeding. However, little is known about the application of the tool on exploring biological functions of abiotic stress-related genes and their molecular breeding experience. In this study, a total of 833 Ds insertion lines have been obtained, which showed significantly higher tolerance or sensitivity to high salinity, drought or cold stress, by screening around 20,000 Ds lines. Analysis of Ds flanking sequence tags revealed that 165 rice genes were tagged by Ds insertion. Gene Ontology (GO) and gene set enrichment analysis showed that over-represented Ds-tagged genes might function in the response to exogenous stimuli. These Ds-tagged genes showed expression divergence among five high salinity and five drought tolerant rice lines under either high salinity or drought stress. Higher percentages of Ds-tagged genes were down- or up-regulated by these abiotic stresses. These Ds-tagged genes were also frequently reduced or suppressed by various phytohormones including abscisic acid and jasmonate. On the other hand, we have also detected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 1–10 base pairs of insertion and deletions (indels) of these Ds-tagged genes among ten high salinity/drought tolerant rice lines by comparing with the reference genome Nipponbare. Our data showed that SNPs were detected among 102 out of 165 genes and indels were identified in 39 out of 165 genes. All the data provided additional information to further explore the biological functions of these genes or to carry out molecular breeding.     

Comprehensive expression analysis of rice phospholipase D gene family during abiotic stresses and development

Phospholipase D is one of the crucial enzymes involved in lipid mediated signaling, triggered during various developmental and physiological processes. Different members of PLD gene family have been known to be induced under different abiotic stresses and during developmental processes in various plant species. In this report, we are presenting a detailed microarray based expression analysis and expression profiles of entire set of PLD genes in rice genome, under three abiotic stresses (salt, cold and drought) and different developmental stages (3-vegetative stages and 11-reproductive stages). Seven and nine PLD genes were identified, which were expressed differentially under abiotic stresses and during reproductive developmental stages, respectively. PLD genes, which were expressed significantly under abiotic stresses exhibited an overlapping expression pattern and were also differentially expressed during developmental stages. Moreover, expression pattern for a set of stress induced genes was validated by real time PCR and it supported the microarray expression data. These findings emphasize the role of PLDs in abiotic stress signaling and development in rice. In addition, expression profiling for duplicated PLD genes revealed a functional divergence between the duplicated genes and signify the role of gene duplication in the evolution of this gene family in rice. This expressional study will provide an important platform in future for the functional characterization of PLDs in crop plants.     

Organization and expression of two Arabidopsis DREB2 genes encoding DRE-binding proteins involved in dehydration- and high-salinity-responsive gene expression

In plants, a cis-acting element, DRE/CRT, is involved in ABA-independent gene expression in response to dehydration and low-temperature stress. To understand signal transduction pathways from perception of the dehydration stress signal to gene expression, we characterized a gene family for DRE/CRT-binding proteins DREB2A and DREB2B in Arabidopsis thaliana. Northern analysis showed that both genes are induced by dehydration and high-salt stress. Organ-specific northern analysis with gene-specific probes showed that these genes are strongly induced in roots by high-salt stress and in stems and roots by dehydration stress. The DREB2A gene is located on chromosome 5, and DREB2B on chromosome 3. We screened an Arabidopsis genomic DNA library with cDNA fragments of DREB2A and DREB2B as probes, and isolated DNA fragments that contained 5-flanking regions of these genes. Sequence analysis showed that both genes are interrupted by a single intron at identical positions in their leader sequence. Several conserved sequences were found in the promoter regions of both genes. The -glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene driven by the DREB2 promoters was induced by dehydration and high-salt stress in transgenic Arabidopsis plants.