Arabidopsis drought-induced protein Di19-3 participates in plant response to drought and high salinity stresses

Abstract

Di19 (drought-induced protein19) family is a novel type of Cys2/His2 zinc-finger proteins. In this study, Arabidopsis Di19-3 was functionally characterized. The experimental results revealed that AtDi19-3 is a transcriptional activator, and could bind to the TACA(A/G)T sequence. AtDi19-3 expression in plants was remarkably induced by NaCl, mannitol and abscisic acid (ABA). T-DNA insertion mutation of AtDi19-3 results in an increase in plant tolerance to drought and high salinity stresses and ABA, whereas overexpression of AtDi19-3 leads to a drought-, salt- and ABA-sensitive phenotype of the transgenic plants. In the presence of NaCl, mannitol or ABA, rates of seed germination and cotyledon greening in Atdi19-3 mutant were higher, but in AtDi19-3 overexpression transgenic plants were lower than those in wild type. Roots of Atdi19-3 mutant seedlings were longer, but those of AtDi19-3 overexpression transgenic seedlings were shorter than those of wild type. Chlorophyll and proline contents in Atdi19-3 mutant were higher, but in AtDi19-3 overexpression seedlings were lower than those in wild type. Atdi19-3 mutant showed greater drought-tolerance, whereas AtDi19-3 overexpression transgenic plants exhibited more drought-sensitivity than wild type. Furthermore, expression of the genes related to ABA signaling pathway was altered in Atdi19-3 mutant and AtDi19-3 transgenic plants. These data suggest that AtDi19-3 may participate in plant response to drought and salt stresses in an ABA-dependent manner.

Ethylene Receptors Signal via a Noncanonical Pathway to Regulate Abscisic Acid Responses

“…Only GO categories with a false discovery rate value , 0.05 were included. C, Heatmap showing coexpression patterns for ABA signaling pathway by phosphorylating ABAresponsive element binding protein factors ABF1 and ABF4 (Hayashi et al, 2001;Milla et al, 2006;Ma and Bohnert, 2007;Sherameti et al, 2008;Liu et al, 2013;Qin et al, 2014;Song et al, 2016).…”

The soybean GmDi19-5 interacts with GmLEA3.1 and increases sensitivity of transgenic plants to abiotic stresses

“…Overexpression of GmDi19-5 displayed increased sensitivities to salt, drought, and oxidative stress during the germination and seedling stages in Arabidopsis (Figures 7 , 8 ). Recently, it was reported that AtDi19-3 displayed drought- and salt-sensitive phenotype in overexpression lines (Qin et al, 2014 ). Similar to AtDi19-3, GmDi19-5 might act as a negative regulator in response to salt and drought stresses (Qin et al, 2014 ).…”

“…This motif contains two cysteines and two histidines that serve as zinc ligands and is represented by the signature Cys-X 2,4 -Cys-X 12 -His-X 3,4,5 -His (Brown et al, 1985 ; Miller et al, 1985 ; Pabo et al, 2001 ; Sakamoto et al, 2004 ). Drought-induced (Di19) proteins are zinc finger transcription factors that play important roles in development, growth, and response to stress (Milla et al, 2006 ; Li et al, 2010a , b ; Liu et al, 2013b ; Qin et al, 2014 ). Di19 proteins are encoded by a small gene family that numbers seven isoforms in Arabidopsis and five in rice (Milla et al, 2006 ).…”

“…The Di19 family functionally participated in various signaling pathways. Di19s have been found acting as both transcription repressors and activators (Li et al, 2010a , b ; Liu et al, 2013b ; Qin et al, 2014 ). In Arabidopsis, AtDi19-1 and AtDi19 -3 were rapidly induced by drought stress, whereas transcripts of AtDi19-2 and AtDi19-4 were accumulated at high levels by high salinity stress (Milla et al, 2006 ).…”

“…Cys2/His2-type zinc finger proteins can bind to DNA elements (Searles et al, 2000 ; Wolfe et al, 2000 ; Liu et al, 2013b ; Qin et al, 2014 ). In Arabidopsis , both AtDi19-1 and AtDi19-3 could bind to the TACA(A/G)T element (Liu et al, 2013b ; Qin et al, 2014 ). Further assays demonstrated AtDi19-1 could directly up-regulate the expressions of PR1, PR2 , and PR5 in response to drought stress.…”