Liu Y, Liang J, Sun L, Yang X, Li D.

Front Plant Sci. 2016 Jul 14;7:1011. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2016.01011. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins are a family of small highly hydrophilic proteins that accumulate at the onset of seed desiccation and in response to adverse conditions such as drought, salinity, low temperature, or water deficit. In previous studies, we demonstrated that ZmLEA3 could enhance the transgenic tobacco tolerance to osmotic and oxidative stresses. Here, we demonstrated that the transcription of ZmLEA3 in the maize stems could be significantly induced by low temperature and osmotic stresses and by treatment with abscisic acid (ABA) and H2O2. Further study indicated that ZmLEA3 is a single copy gene in the maize genome. The ZmLEA3 protein could protect lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity at low temperatures. The overexpression of ZmLEA3 conferred tolerance to low-temperature stress to transgenic tobacco, yeast (GS115) and E. coli (BL21).

See: http://www.maizegdb.org/popcorn/search/sequence_search/home.php?a=

Figure 8: The low-temperature tolerance of transgenic and control tobacco plants. The phenotype of transgenic and control tobacco plants grown in normal conditions after low-temperature treatment (A). Total chlorophyll content (B), malondialdehyde (MDA) (C), the relative electrolyte leakage (D), the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) (E), and peroxidase (POD) (F) were measured in 6-week-old transgenic and control tobacco plants before and after low-temperature treatment (4°C) at the indicated time. Each curve/column represents an average of three replicates, and error bars represent standard deviation. The statistical significance of the difference was confirmed by Student’s t-test, ^∗∗P < 0.01.