Functional characterization of an unobtrusive protein, CkMT4, in re-establishing desiccation tolerance in germinating seeds.

Long Peng, Hao Wu, Xu Huang, Meiyan Zeng, Shiming Deng, Hua Xue, Xiaofeng Wang

Journal: International journal of biological macromolecules 2021;173():180-192

PMID: 33482205

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Abstract

Desiccation tolerance (DT) is gradually lost during seed germination, while it can be re-established by pre-treatment with polyethylene glycol (PEG) and/or abscisic acid (ABA). Increasing knowledge is available on several stress-related proteins in DT re-establishment in herb seeds, but limited information exists on novel proteins in wood seeds. This study aimed to investigate the role of metallothionein CkMT4, a protein species with the highest fold increase in abundance in Caragana korshinskii seeds on PEG treatment. The fluctuation in mRNA levels of CkMT4 during seed development was consistent with the changes in DT, and the expression of CkMT4 could be up-regulated by ABA. Besides metal-binding capacity, CkMT4 might supply Cu/Zn to superoxide dismutase (SOD) under high redox potential provided by PEG treatment for excess reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging. The overexpression of CkMT4 in yeast results in enhanced oxidation resistance. Experimentally, this study demonstrated the overexpression of CkMT4 in Arabidopsis seeds benefited the re-establishment of DT and enhanced the activity of SOD. On the whole, these findings suggested that CkMT4 facilitated the re-establishment of DT in C. korshinskii seeds mainly through diminishing excess ROS, which put the mechanism underlying the re-establishment of DT in xerophytic wood seeds into a new perspective.

Address: Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design, National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, 35 Tsinghua East Road, Beijing 100083, China; Research Institute of Subtropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Hangzhou, P. R. China.; Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design, National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, 35 Tsinghua East Road, Beijing 100083, China.; Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design, National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, 35 Tsinghua East Road, Beijing 100083, China; College of Forestry and Horticulture, Hubei Minzu University, Enshi, PR China.; Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design, National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, 35 Tsinghua East Road, Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address: [email protected].; Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design, National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, 35 Tsinghua East Road, Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address: [email protected].

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2021.01.011

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MeSH Terms: Abscisic Acid, Adaptation, Physiological, Amino Acid Sequence, Arabidopsis, Caragana, Cations, Divalent, Copper, Desiccation, Gene Expression Regulation, Plant, Genetic Complementation Test, Germination, Metallothionein, Plant Proteins, Polyethylene Glycols, RNA, Messenger, Reactive Oxygen Species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Seeds, Sequence Alignment, Sequence Homology, Amino Acid, Stress, Physiological, Superoxide Dismutase, Zinc