Yi Xu, Wei Hu, Shun Song, Xiaoxue Ye, Zehong Ding, Juhua Liu, Zhuo Wang, Jingyang Li, Xiaowan Hou, Biyu Xu, Zhiqiang Jin

Horticulture Research, uhac275, Published 07 December 2022

https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhac275

Abstract

Adverse environmental factors severely affect crop productivity. Improving crop resistance to multiple stressors is an important breeding goal. Although CBFs/DREB1s extensively participate in plant resistance to abiotic stress, the common mechanism underlying CBFs/DREB1s that mediate resistance to multiple stressors remains unclear. Here, we show the common mechanism for MaDREB1F conferring cold and drought stress resistance in banana. MaDREB1F encodes a dehydration responsive element binding protein (DREB) transcription factor with nuclear localization and transcriptional activity. MaDREB1F expression is significantly induced after cold, osmotic, and salt treatments. MaDREB1F overexpression increases banana resistance to cold and drought stress by commonly modulating the protectant metabolite levels of soluble sugar and proline, activating the antioxidant system, and promoting jasmonate and ethylene syntheses. Transcriptomic analysis shows that MaDREB1F commonly activates or alleviates the repression of jasmonate and ethylene biosynthetic genes under cold and drought conditions. Moreover, MaDREB1F directly activates the promoter activities of MaAOC4 and MaACO20 for jasmonate and ethylene syntheses, respectively, under cold and drought conditions. MaDREB1F also targets the MaERF11 promoter to activate MaACO20 expression for ethylene synthesis under drought stress. Together, our findings offer new insight into the common mechanism underlying CBFs/DREB1s-mediated cold and drought stress resistance, which has substantial implications for engineering cold- and drought- tolerant crops.

See https://academic.oup.com/hr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/hr/uhac275/6881686?login=false

Figure 6: Common regulation of jasmonate and ethylene biosynthesis by MaDREB1F  overexpression under cold and drought conditions.

(a) Expression profile of six genes commonly regulated by MaDREB1F overexpression after cold and drought treatments in JA synthesis  pathway.

(b) Expression profile of five genes in ethylene synthesis pathway commonly regulated  by MaDREB1F overexpression after cold and drought treatments .

(c) Expression profile of 22 ERF genes commonly regulated by MaDREB1F overexpression after cold and drought treatments.