Expression of poplar sex-determining gene affects plant drought tolerance and the underlying molecular mechanism

Abstract

It is frequently observed that plant sexes differ in their response to environmental stress. Poplars are dioecious plants, and sex separation of poplars is triggered by the sex-limited expression of the poplar sex-determining gene FERR. In this study, we over-expressed FERR in a male poplar and knocked it out in a female poplar. The over-expression lines exhibited distinct morphological and physiological changes rendering the transformed plants more tolerant to drought stress. By contrast, no obvious change in drought tolerance was observed in the knockout lines. Transcriptome sequencing and molecular interaction analysis demonstrated that the effect of FERR on drought tolerance was conferred by competitive interaction with protein phosphatase 2C and SNF1-related protein kinase 2 (SnRK2). Under drought stress, an FERR-SnRK2s-ARR5 complex forms and activates the ABA signaling pathway. Our results provide direct evidence that the expression of the poplar sex-determining gene pleiotropically affects plant drought tolerance.

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (2021YFD2200202), the Key Research and Development Project (BE2021366), and the China Scholarship Council (grant no. 202208320351).

Author Contributions

T.M.Y. conceived and designed the research. J.L. performed the experiments and analyzed the data. T.M.Y. and J.L. drafted the manuscript. T.M.Y., J.L., and Y.H.Y. revised the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

Data Availability

The data underlying this article are available in the article and in its online supplementary material.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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