APPLE SUMO E3 LIGASE MDSIZ1 NEGATIVELY REGULATES DROUGHT TOLERANCE

Highlights

•MdSIZ1 RNAi transgenic apple trees are drought tolerance than wild type—GL-3.

•MdSIZ1 RNAi plants get enhanced ability to keep water and scavenge ROS under drought conditions.

•MdSIZ1 may participate in apple drought tolerance by affecting ABA biosynthesis.

Abstract

Drought stress typically causes heavy losses in apple production and uncovering the mechanisms by which apple tolerates drought stress is important in apple breeding. MdSIZ1 is a SUMO (small ubiquitin-like modifier) E3 ligase that promotes SUMO binding to substrate proteins. Here, we demonstrate that MdSIZ1 in apple has a negative relationship with drought tolerance. MdSIZ1 RNAi transgenic apple trees had a higher survival rate after drought stress. During drought stress they had higher leaf water potential, reduced ion leakage, lower H₂O₂ and malondialdehyde contents, and higher catalase activity. In addition, MdSIZ1 RNAi transgenic plants had a higher net photosynthetic rate during the latter period of drought stress. Finally, the transgenic apple trees also altered expression levels of some microRNAs in response to drought stress. Taken together, these results indicate that apple MdSIZ1 negatively regulates drought stress by enhancing leaf water-holding capacity and antioxidant enzyme activity.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

apple / drought tolerance / gene expression / MdSIZ1

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Zhihong Zhang of Shenyang Agricultural University for providing tissue-cultured GL-3 plants. This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31872080) and the Start-up Funds of Northwest A&F university to Xuewei Li (2452020216).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Baohua Chu, Jia Sun, Huan Dang, Ziqing Ma, Shuang Zhao, Qingmei Guan, and Xuewei Li declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2021. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)