Expression of Two α-Type Expansins from Ammopiptanthus nanus in Arabidopsis thaliana Enhance Tolerance to Cold and Drought Stresses

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences Vol. 20; no. 21; p. 5255
• Main Authors: Liu, Yanping, Zhang, Li, Hao, Wenfang, Zhang, Ling, Liu, Yi, Chen, Longqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 23-10-2019; MDPI
• Subjects: Abiotic stress; Amino acids; Ammopiptanthus nanus; anexpa1; anexpa2; arabidopsis; Arabidopsis - genetics; Arabidopsis - metabolism; Cell division; Cold; Cold Temperature; Cold tolerance; Deserts; Drought; Droughts; expansin; Fabaceae - genetics; Fabaceae - metabolism; Genomes; hormone; Hormones; Physiology; Plant growth; Plant Proteins - genetics; Plant Proteins - metabolism; Proteins; Rain; reactive oxygen species; Reliability analysis; Stress, Physiological; Transgenes; Transgenic plants; Arabidopsis; expansin; Ammopiptanthus nanus; reactive oxygen species; AnEXPA2; AnEXPA1; abiotic stress; hormone
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms20215255

Expansins, cell-wall loosening proteins, play an important role in plant growth and development and abiotic stress tolerance.
(
) is an important plant to study to understand stress resistance in forestry. In our previous study, two α-type expansins from
were cloned and named
and
. In this study, we found that they responded to different abiotic stress and hormone signals. It suggests that they may play different roles in response to abiotic stress. Their promoters show some of the same element responses to abiotic stress and hormones, but some special elements were identified between the expansins that could be essential for their expression. In order to further testify the reliability of the above results, we conducted an analysis of β-glucuronidase (GUS) dyeing. The analysis showed that
was only induced by cold stress, whereas
responded to hormone induction.
and
transgenic
plants showed better tolerance to cold and drought stresses. Moreover, the ability to scavenge reactive oxygen species (ROS) was significantly improved in the transgenic plants, and expansin activity was enhanced. These results suggested that
and
play an important role in the response to abiotic stress. Our research contributes to a better understanding of the regulatory network of expansins and may benefit agricultural production.