An ethylene-induced NAC transcription factor acts as a multiple abiotic stress responsor in conifer

Abstract

The proper response to various abiotic stresses is essential for plants’ survival to overcome their sessile nature, especially for perennial trees with very long-life cycles. However, in conifers, the molecular mechanisms that coordinate multiple abiotic stress responses remain elusive. Here, the transcriptome response to various abiotic stresses like salt, cold, drought, heat shock and osmotic were systematically detected in Pinus tabuliformis (P. tabuliformis) seedlings. We found that four transcription factors were commonly induced by all tested stress treatments, while PtNAC3 and PtZFP30 were highly up-regulated and co-expressed. Unexpectedly, the exogenous hormone treatment assays and the content of the endogenous hormone indicates that the upregulation of PtNAC3 and PtZFP30 are mediated by ethylene. Time-course assay showed that the treatment by ethylene immediate precursor, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC), activated the expression of PtNAC3 and PtZFP30 within 8 hours. We further confirm that the PtNAC3 can directly bind to the PtZFP30 promoter region and form a cascade. Overexpression of PtNAC3 enhanced unified abiotic stress tolerance without growth penalty in transgenic Arabidopsis and promoted reproductive success under abiotic stress by shortening the lifespan, suggesting it has great potential as a biological tool applied to plant breeding for abiotic stress tolerance. This study provides novel insights into the hub nodes of the abiotic stresses response network as well as the environmental adaptation mechanism in conifers, and provides a potential biofortification tool to enhance plant unified abiotic stress tolerance.

Acknowledgements

We thank Meiqin Liu and the Testing and Analysis Center of Beijing Forestry University for assisting in confocal microscopy analysis. This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (NO. BLX202217, 2021BLRD22).

Author contributions

S.N. conceived the research, participated in the design of the experiments, headed and managed the project and edited most of the manuscript. F.H. designed part of the experiments, carried out most of the experiments, analysed data and drafted the manuscript. P.W., X.C. and Y.N. planted P. tabuliformis, wild-type Arabidopsis, screened transgenic lines, and observed the phenotype, H.Z. and Q.Z. assisted with CUT & Tag assay, X.C. and Y.S. participated in analysing data. Y.L. and M.G. contributed to designing and supervising various parts of the research. All authors discussed and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability

The authors declare that all data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and supplementary material or are available upon request from the corresponding author. The RNA-seq data of drought treatment can be found at: http://db.cngb.org/search/project/CNP0002179; the RNA-seq data of UVB treatment can be found at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/557580; the RNA-seq data of light treatment can found at: http://db.cngb.org/search/project/CNP0000737. Any additional information required to reanalyze the data reported in this work paper is available from the Corresponding Author upon request.

Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

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