An A20/AN1-type zinc finger protein modulates gibberellins and abscisic acid contents and increases sensitivity to abiotic stress in rice (Oryza sativa)

Abstract

The plant hormones gibberellins (GA) and abscisic acid (ABA) play important roles in plant development and stress responses. Here we report a novel A20/AN1-type zinc finger protein ZFP185 involved in GA and ABA signaling in the regulation of growth and stress response. ZFP185 was constitutively expressed in various rice tissues. Overexpression of ZFP185 in rice results in a semi-dwarfism phenotype, reduced cell size, and the decrease of endogenous GA3 content. By contrast, higher GA3 content was observed in RNAi plants. The application of exogenous GA3 can fully rescue the semi-dwarfism phenotype of ZFP185 overexpressing plants, suggesting the negative role of ZFP185 in GA biosynthesis. Besides GA, overexpression of ZFP185 decreased ABA content and expression of several ABA biosynthesis-related genes. Moreover, it was found that ZFP185, unlike previously known A20/AN1-type zinc finger genes, increases sensitivity to drought, cold, and salt stresses, implying the negative role of ZFP185 in stress tolerance. ZFP185 was localized in the cytoplasm and lacked transcriptional activation potential. Our study suggests that ZFP185 regulates plant growth and stress responses by affecting GA and ABA biosynthesis in rice.

Reproductive stage physiological and transcriptional responses to salinity stress in reciprocal populations derived from tolerant (Horkuch) and susceptible (IR29) rice

“…AN1/A20-like Zinc finger family proteins are evolutionarily conserved regulatory components in eukaryotic signaling circuits. In addition, the physiological functions of plant A20/AN1-ZnF family proteins have been implicated in various abiotic and biotic stress responses48.…”

An Arabidopsis Zinc Finger Protein Increases Abiotic Stress Tolerance by Regulating Sodium and Potassium Homeostasis, Reactive Oxygen Species Scavenging and Osmotic Potential

“…ZFPs are also involved in gibberellins (GA) signaling in the regulation of the stress response. Transgenic plants overexpressing the ZFPs OsDOG (Liu et al, 2011) and ZFP185 (Zhang Y. et al, 2016) displayed a reduced GA content, dwarf phenotypes and sensitivity to abiotic stress. However, plants overexpressing BBX24 (Yang et al, 2014) also showed reduced GA content, but plants expressing BBX24 showed normal growth phenotype and enhanced salt and drought stress tolerance (Yang et al, 2014).…”

“…Analysis of ABA-related marker gene expression in Arabidopsis suggested that GmZFP3 might be involved in the ABA-dependent pathway during the drought stress response. OsDOG and ZFP185 also play negative roles in abiotic stress tolerance (Liu et al, 2011; Zhang Y. et al, 2016). …”

The E3 Ligase TaSAP5 Alters Drought Stress Responses by Promoting the Degradation of DRIP Proteins

“…Past research suggests that OSISAP11 interacts with the rice receptor-like cytoplasmic kinase OSIRLCK253 and improves drought and salt stress tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis (Giri et al, 2011). In addition, the rice A20/AN1-type zinc finger protein ZFP185 is involved in GA and abscisic acid (ABA) signaling, which regulates growth and stress responses (Zhang et al, 2016). Recent studies have associated SAP proteins with roles including ubiquitination, redox sensing, and regulation of gene expression under abiotic stress conditions (Ströher et al, 2009;Ben-Saad et al, 2012a, 2012bKang et al, 2013).…”