Constitutive expression of REL1 confers the rice response to drought stress and abscisic acid
Jiayan Liang,
Shaoying Guo,
Bo Sun,
Qing Liu,
Xionghui Chen,
Haifeng Peng,
Zemin Zhang,
Qingjun Xie
Affiliations
Jiayan Liang
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Breeding, South China Agricultural University
Shaoying Guo
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Breeding, South China Agricultural University
Bo Sun
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Breeding, South China Agricultural University
Qing Liu
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Breeding, South China Agricultural University
Xionghui Chen
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Breeding, South China Agricultural University
Haifeng Peng
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Breeding, South China Agricultural University
Zemin Zhang
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Breeding, South China Agricultural University
Qingjun Xie
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Breeding, South China Agricultural University
Abstract Leaf rolling is one of the most significant symptoms of drought stress in plant. Previously, we identified a dominant negative mutant, termed rolled and erect 1 (hereafter referred to rel1-D), regulating leaf rolling and erectness in rice. However, the role of REL1 in drought response is still poorly understood. Here, our results indicated that rel1-D displayed higher tolerance to drought relative to wild type, and the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and drought responsive genes were significantly up-regulated in rel1-D. Moreover, our results revealed that rel1-D was hypersensitive to ABA and the expression of ABA associated genes was significantly increased in rel1-D, suggesting that REL1 likely coordinates ABA to regulate drought response. Using the RNA-seq approach, we identified a large group of differentially expressed genes that regulate stimuli and stresses response. Consistently, we also found that constitutive expression of REL1 alters the expression of biotic and abiotic stress responsive genes by the isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) analysis. Integrative analysis demonstrated that 8 genes/proteins identified by both RNA-seq and iTRAQ would be the potential targets in term of the REL1-mediated leaf morphology. Together, we proposed that leaf rolling and drought tolerance of rel1-D under normal condition might be caused by the endogenously perturbed homeostasis derived from continuous stressful dynamics.
