Journal
JOURNAL OF PLANT BIOLOGY
Volume 64, Issue 4, Pages 327-336Publisher
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
DOI: 10.1007/s12374-021-09306-5
Keywords
Cabbage; DEAD-box RNA helicase; RH37; Abiotic stress; Transgenic Arabidopsis
Categories
Funding
- Next-Generation BioGreen21 Program [PJ01312201]
- Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea
Ask authors/readers for more resources
RNA helicases are cellular proteins that play a crucial role in regulating post-transcriptional mRNA metabolism in response to abiotic stress. This study investigated the functional role of a cabbage DEAD-box RH, BrRH37, in abiotic stress and ABA responses, and found that it may enhance plant growth and survival by its RNA chaperone activity.
RNA helicases (RHs) are cellular proteins that help in the regulation of post-transcriptional mRNA metabolism, which is vital for the response of crops to abiotic stresses. In this study, we determined the functional role of a cabbage (Brassica rapa) DEAD-box RH, BrRH37, in abiotic stress and abscisic acid (ABA) responses using transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Although BrRH37 contains a putative chloroplast transit peptide and a potential nuclear localization signal, confocal analysis of the expression of the BrRH37-GFP protein in tobacco leaves revealed that BrRH37 is localized in the nucleus. The transcript levels of BrRH37 in cabbage were increased upon drought, cold, or ABA application, whereas its level was decreased by heat or UV stress. The transgenic Arabidopsis plants that constitutively express BrRH37 showed enhanced seedling and root growth or survival rate under drought stress or upon ABA application, whereas their growth and survival were decreased under cold or UV stress. Notably, transcript levels of ABA biosynthesis-related genes, including ABA1 and ABA3, were significantly increased in the transgenic plants compared with that in the wild type. Importantly, BrRH37 was found to recover the growth of the RNA chaperone-deficient Escherichia coli mutant at low temperature and had the ability to break up base pairs in RNA, suggesting that BrRH37 possesses RNA chaperone activity. Altogether, our results indicate that BrRH37 plays diverse functions in plant response to abiotic stress and ABA possibly via its RNA chaperone activity.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available