TY - EJOU
AU - Zhao, Yanyan
AU - Ding, Yanpeng
AU - Duan, Bailin
AU - Xie, Qingzhou
TI - GhSCL4 Acts as a Positive Regulator in Both Transgenic Arabidopsis and Cotton during Salt Stress
T2 - Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany
PY - 2023
VL - 92
IS - 1
SN - 1851-5657
AB - GRAS transcription factors play important roles in plant abiotic stress response, but their characteristics and
functions in cotton have not been fully investigated. A cotton SCL4/7 subgroup gene in the GRAS family,
GhSCL4, was found to be induced by NaCl treatments. Nuclear localization and transactivation activity of GhSCL4
indicate its potential role in transcriptional regulation. Transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana over-expressing GhSCL4
showed enhanced resistance to salt and osmotic stress. What’s more, the transcript levels of salt stress-induced
genes (AtNHX1 and AtSOS1) and oxidation-related genes (AtAPX3 and AtCSD2) were more highly induced in
the GhSCL4 over-expression lines than in wild type after salt treatment. Furthermore, silencing of GhSCL4
resulted in reduced salt tolerance in cotton caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS) enrichment under salt treatment, and antioxidant enzyme activities were accordingly significantly reduced in GhSLC4-silenced lines. These
results indicated that GhSCL4 enhances salt tolerance of cotton by detoxifying ROS. In addition, the transient
expression assay confirmed an interactive relationship between GhSCL4 and GhCaM7, which indicated that salt
tolerance conferred by GhSCL4 might be associated with salt-induced Ca2+/CaM7-mediated signaling. Taken
together, GhSCL4 acts as a positive regulator in cotton during salt stress that is potentially useful for engineering
salt-tolerant cotton.
KW - GRAS transcription factors; GhSCL4; GhCaM7; salt stress; ROS
DO - 10.32604/phyton.2022.022384