OfWRKY17-OfC3H49 module responding to high ambient temperature delays flowering via inhibiting OfSOC1B expression in Osmanthus fragrans

Abstract

Ambient temperature is a pivotal factor in the regulation of the flowering process in plants. In this study, we found that high ambient temperature exerts an inhibitory effect on the flowering of Osmanthus fragrans “Sjigui”. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain not fully understood. Through transcriptome analysis, a differently expressed C3H gene OfC3H49 was identified, which is induced by high ambient temperature. OfC3H49 was demonstrated to delay the flowering process of Arabidopsis and downregulate the expression of flowering-related genes in O. fragrans calli. Further investigation indicates that OfC3H49 as a transcriptional repressor directly suppresses the expression of the OfSOC1B thereby causing a delay in flowering time. Furthermore, a WRKY transcription factor, OfWRKY17, was identified to be responsive to high ambient temperature, directly binding to the OfC3H49 promoter and enhance OfC3H49 expression. Overexpression of OfWRKY17 in Arabidopsis resulted in a significant delay in flowering and induced the expression of OfC3H49 in O. fragrans calli. Collectively, our findings delineate a regulatory module, OfWRKY17-OfC3H49, which is activated by high ambient temperature and functions as a negative regulator of flowering by suppressing the expression of OfSOC1B in O. fragrans. This study provides novel insights into the molecular mechanisms involved in ambient temperature-mediated flowering control and contributes to the development of molecular breeding strategies for O. fragrans.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 31902057 and 32072615), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. LQ19C160012), and the key research and development program of Zhejiang Province (Grant No. 2021C02071).

Author contributions

Bin Dong and Hongbo Zhao designed and supervised the work; Yong Ye participated in the entire thesis writing and data analysis; Yong Ye, Lixiao Shen, Xinke Lu, En Kong, and Qianqian Wang participated in the experiment process; Shiwei Zhong, Yiguang Wang, Zheng Xiao, Qiu Fang, and Jinping Deng provided guidance and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability

The RNA sequencing data have been submitted to the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) under the BioProject accession number PRJNA961323. The CDS of OfWRKY17, OfC3H49, and OfSOC1B has been deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) with the accession numbers PP108736, PP108735, and PP103737.

Other data supporting our findings are available in the manuscript file or from the corresponding author upon request.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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