Drought-responsive WRKY Transcription Factor Genes TaWRKY1 and TaWRKY33 from Wheat Confer Drought And/or Heat Resistance in Arabidopsis

Overview

Journal BMC Plant Biol

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Biology

Date 2016 May 25

PMID 27215938

Citations 144

Authors

Guan-Hua He

Ji-Yuan Xu

Yan-Xia Wang

Jia-Ming Liu

Pan-Song Li

Ming Chen

You-Zhi Ma

Zhao-Shi Xu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Drought stress is one of the major causes of crop loss. WRKY transcription factors, as one of the largest transcription factor families, play important roles in regulation of many plant processes, including drought stress response. However, far less information is available on drought-responsive WRKY genes in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), one of the three staple food crops.

Results: Forty eight putative drought-induced WRKY genes were identified from a comparison between de novo transcriptome sequencing data of wheat without or with drought treatment. TaWRKY1 and TaWRKY33 from WRKY Groups III and II, respectively, were selected for further investigation. Subcellular localization assays revealed that TaWRKY1 and TaWRKY33 were localized in the nuclei in wheat mesophyll protoplasts. Various abiotic stress-related cis-acting elements were observed in the promoters of TaWRKY1 and TaWRKY33. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis showed that TaWRKY1 was slightly up-regulated by high-temperature and abscisic acid (ABA), and down-regulated by low-temperature. TaWRKY33 was involved in high responses to high-temperature, low-temperature, ABA and jasmonic acid methylester (MeJA). Overexpression of TaWRKY1 and TaWRKY33 activated several stress-related downstream genes, increased germination rates, and promoted root growth in Arabidopsis under various stresses. TaWRKY33 transgenic Arabidopsis lines showed lower rates of water loss than TaWRKY1 transgenic Arabidopsis lines and wild type plants during dehydration. Most importantly, TaWRKY33 transgenic lines exhibited enhanced tolerance to heat stress.

Conclusions: The functional roles highlight the importance of WRKYs in stress response.

Citing Articles

Wheat E3 ligase is involved in drought stress tolerance in transgenic .

Hong M, Ko C, Kim D Physiol Mol Biol Plants. 2025; 31(2):233-246.

PMID: 40070538 PMC: 11890807. DOI: 10.1007/s12298-025-01557-7.

OfWRKY17-OfC3H49 module responding to high ambient temperature delays flowering via inhibiting expression in .

Ye Y, Lu X, Kong E, Wang Q, Shen L, Zhong S Hortic Res. 2025; 12(1):uhae273.

PMID: 39897730 PMC: 11725642. DOI: 10.1093/hr/uhae273.

Drought-tolerant wheat for enhancing global food security.

Bohra A, Choudhary M, Bennett D, Joshi R, Mir R, Varshney R Funct Integr Genomics. 2024; 24(6):212.

PMID: 39535570 DOI: 10.1007/s10142-024-01488-8.

Identification of Quantitative Trait Loci Associated with Plant Adaptation Traits Using Nested Association Mapping Population.

Amalova A, Babkenov A, Philp C, Griffiths S, Abugalieva S, Turuspekov Y Plants (Basel). 2024; 13(18).

PMID: 39339597 PMC: 11435412. DOI: 10.3390/plants13182623.

Identification of key genes and molecular pathways regulating heat stress tolerance in pearl millet to sustain productivity in challenging ecologies.

Singh S, Viswanath A, Chakraborty A, Narayanan N, Malipatil R, Jacob J Front Plant Sci. 2024; 15:1443681.

PMID: 39239194 PMC: 11374647. DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1443681.

References

Jiang Y, Liang G, Yu D . Activated expression of WRKY57 confers drought tolerance in Arabidopsis. Mol Plant. 2012; 5(6):1375-88. DOI: 10.1093/mp/sss080. View

Kayum M, Jung H, Park J, Ahmed N, Saha G, Yang T . Identification and expression analysis of WRKY family genes under biotic and abiotic stresses in Brassica rapa. Mol Genet Genomics. 2014; 290(1):79-95. DOI: 10.1007/s00438-014-0898-1. View

Zou X, Seemann J, Neuman D, Shen Q . A WRKY gene from creosote bush encodes an activator of the abscisic acid signaling pathway. J Biol Chem. 2004; 279(53):55770-9. DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M408536200. View

Peng X, Hu Y, Tang X, Zhou P, Deng X, Wang H . Constitutive expression of rice WRKY30 gene increases the endogenous jasmonic acid accumulation, PR gene expression and resistance to fungal pathogens in rice. Planta. 2012; 236(5):1485-98. DOI: 10.1007/s00425-012-1698-7. View

Robert-Seilaniantz A, Navarro L, Bari R, Jones J . Pathological hormone imbalances. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2007; 10(4):372-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.pbi.2007.06.003. View

Li S, Fu Q, Huang W, Yu D . Functional analysis of an Arabidopsis transcription factor WRKY25 in heat stress. Plant Cell Rep. 2009; 28(4):683-93. DOI: 10.1007/s00299-008-0666-y. View

Chujo T, Miyamoto K, Ogawa S, Masuda Y, Shimizu T, Kishi-Kaboshi M . Overexpression of phosphomimic mutated OsWRKY53 leads to enhanced blast resistance in rice. PLoS One. 2014; 9(6):e98737. PMC: 4043820. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0098737. View

Zhang Y, Wang L . The WRKY transcription factor superfamily: its origin in eukaryotes and expansion in plants. BMC Evol Biol. 2005; 5:1. PMC: 544883. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2148-5-1. View

Chen L, Song Y, Li S, Zhang L, Zou C, Yu D . The role of WRKY transcription factors in plant abiotic stresses. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2011; 1819(2):120-8. DOI: 10.1016/j.bbagrm.2011.09.002. View

10.

Li R, Yu C, Li Y, Lam T, Yiu S, Kristiansen K . SOAP2: an improved ultrafast tool for short read alignment. Bioinformatics. 2009; 25(15):1966-7. DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btp336. View

11.

Wu X, Shiroto Y, Kishitani S, Ito Y, Toriyama K . Enhanced heat and drought tolerance in transgenic rice seedlings overexpressing OsWRKY11 under the control of HSP101 promoter. Plant Cell Rep. 2008; 28(1):21-30. DOI: 10.1007/s00299-008-0614-x. View

12.

Zhang Y, Feng J . Identification and characterization of the grape WRKY family. Biomed Res Int. 2014; 2014:787680. PMC: 4022171. DOI: 10.1155/2014/787680. View

13.

Wang F, Chen H, Li Q, Wei W, Li W, Zhang W . GmWRKY27 interacts with GmMYB174 to reduce expression of GmNAC29 for stress tolerance in soybean plants. Plant J. 2015; 83(2):224-36. DOI: 10.1111/tpj.12879. View

14.

Xie Z, Zhang Z, Zou X, Huang J, Ruas P, Thompson D . Annotations and functional analyses of the rice WRKY gene superfamily reveal positive and negative regulators of abscisic acid signaling in aleurone cells. Plant Physiol. 2004; 137(1):176-89. PMC: 548849. DOI: 10.1104/pp.104.054312. View

15.

Shang Y, Yan L, Liu Z, Cao Z, Mei C, Xin Q . The Mg-chelatase H subunit of Arabidopsis antagonizes a group of WRKY transcription repressors to relieve ABA-responsive genes of inhibition. Plant Cell. 2010; 22(6):1909-35. PMC: 2910980. DOI: 10.1105/tpc.110.073874. View

16.

Ishihama N, Yoshioka H . Post-translational regulation of WRKY transcription factors in plant immunity. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2012; 15(4):431-7. DOI: 10.1016/j.pbi.2012.02.003. View

17.

Huang W, Sun W, Lv H, Luo M, Zeng S, Pattanaik S . A R2R3-MYB transcription factor from Epimedium sagittatum regulates the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway. PLoS One. 2013; 8(8):e70778. PMC: 3731294. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0070778. View

18.

Liu B, Jiang G, Zhang Y, Li J, Li X, Yue J . Analysis of transcriptome differences between resistant and susceptible strains of the citrus red mite Panonychus citri (Acari: Tetranychidae). PLoS One. 2011; 6(12):e28516. PMC: 3230605. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0028516. View

19.

Encinas-Villarejo S, Maldonado A, Amil-Ruiz F, de Los Santos B, Romero F, Pliego-Alfaro F . Evidence for a positive regulatory role of strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) Fa WRKY1 and Arabidopsis At WRKY75 proteins in resistance. J Exp Bot. 2009; 60(11):3043-65. DOI: 10.1093/jxb/erp152. View

20.

Liu Y, Schiff M, Dinesh-Kumar S . Involvement of MEK1 MAPKK, NTF6 MAPK, WRKY/MYB transcription factors, COI1 and CTR1 in N-mediated resistance to tobacco mosaic virus. Plant J. 2004; 38(5):800-9. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-313X.2004.02085.x. View