Evaluating the role of wheat histone variant genes in development and response to abiotic stress in Arabidopsis

Abstract

Histone variants can epigenetically regulate gene transcription through chromatin modulation. This regulation have been occasionally found in responses to abiotic stresses in plants, but their roles are not quite clear. Here, we describe 12 salt-responsive histone variant genes isolated from wheat. There was no sequence polymorphism in these 12 genes between the wheat cultivar 'JN177'and its salinity and drought tolerant derivative 'SR3' indicating that histone variant genes are highly conserved. However, these genes displayed differential patterns of transcription in 'JN177' and 'SR3'. When transformed into Arabidopsis thaliana, eight of the genes were silenced. The heterologous expression of the four active transgenes had no discernible effect on the Arabidopsis phenotype neither under control conditions nor under different abiotic stresses suggesting that histone variants could not be considered as candidate genes for molecular breeding by ectopic expression.

Keywords

• chromatin remodeling
• transcription regulation
• transgenic plants
• triticum aestivum