VuWRKY, a group I WRKY gene from Vaccinium uliginosum, confers tolerance to cold and salt stresses in plant

• Published in: Plant cell, tissue and organ culture Vol. 147; no. 1; pp. 157 - 168
• Main Authors: Dai, Zhiguo, Wei, Mingyue, Zhang, Bingxiu, Yuan, Yue, Zhang, Bingfang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.10.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Abiotic stress; Arabidopsis thaliana; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Chlorophyll; Cold; Cold tolerance; Genetic transformation; High resistance; Life Sciences; Low temperature; Low temperature resistance; Malondialdehyde; Mountains; Open reading frames; Original Article; Overexpression; Pattern analysis; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant Pathology; Plant Physiology; Plant Sciences; Proline; Salts; Seedlings; Survival; Transcription factors; Vaccinium uliginosum; Zinc finger proteins; Transgenic; Cold stress; Salt stress
• ISSN: 0167-6857; 1573-5044
• DOI: 10.1007/s11240-021-02115-1

Members of WRKY transcription factors are involved in the response of plant to stress. Vaccinium uliginosum distributed in Greater Khingan Mountains and Lesser Khingan Mountains possesses a high resistance to cold. In this study, a WRKY gene designated as VuWRKY was identified from V. uliginosum , and the expression pattern was also analyzed. The role of VuWRKY plays in abiotic stress was studied by over-expression in Arabidopsis thaliana . The results showed VuWRKY contained an open reading frames of 1632 bp, which comprised of two WRKY domains and two C 2 H 2 zinc finger structures. Therefore, VuWRKY belongs to the group I of WRKY. The qPCR analysis displayed VuWRKY expressed the highest in leaves. Under salt and low temperature stress, the expression of VuWRKY in V. uliginosum first increased and then decreased with time. Transformation of VuWRKY into A. thaliana resulted in a higher activity of antioxidases (SOD, POD and CAT), a higher content of proline and chlorophyll, while a lower content of malondialdehyde (MDA). The survival rate of VuWRKY over-expressed seedlings was significantly improved. Our results indicate VuWRKY plays a positive role in cold and salt stress. Key Message VuWRKY cloned from Vaccinium uliginosum , responses to cold and salt stress and plays a positive role in resistance of Arabidopsis thaliana to abiotic stress.