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ARTICLE
Characteristics and expression of the TCP transcription factors family in Allium senescens reveal its potential roles in drought stress responses
XIAOHONG FU1,#, JIE ZHAO3,#, DANDAN CAO1,2, CHENGXING HE1,2, ZIYI WANG1, YIBEI JIANG1, JIANFENG LIU1,*, GUIXIA LIU1,*
1 College of Life Science, Institute of Life Science and Green Development, Hebei University, Baoding, 071000, China
2 Hebei Innovation Center for Bioengineering and Biotechnology, Hebei University, Baoding, 071002, China
3 College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China
* Corresponding Authors: Jianfeng Liu, ; Guixia Liu,
# These authors contributed equally to this work
(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plant Stress Tolerance)
BIOCELL 2023, 47(4), 905-917. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2023.026930
Received 08 October 2022; Accepted 28 November 2022; Issue published 08 March 2023
Abstract
Allium senescens, is an important economic and ecological grassland plant with drought-resistant
characteristics. A TCP protein transcription factor is important in the regulation of plant development and adverse
responses. However, the mechanism by which TCP transcription functions in drought resistance in
Allium senescens
is still not clear. Here, we obtained a total of 190,305 transcripts with 115,562 single gene clusters based on RNA-Seq
sequencing of
Allium senescens under drought stress. The total number of bases was 97,195,096 bp, and the average
length was 841.06 bp. Furthermore, we found that there were eight genes of the TCP family that showed an upregulated expression trend under drought stress in
Allium senescens. We carried out an investigation to determine the
evolution and function of the AsTCP family and how they produce an effect in drought resistance. The 14 AsTCP
genes were confirmed and divided into class I and class II containing CIN and CYC/TBI subfamilies, respectively. We
also found that the expression of AsTCP17 was remarkably upregulated with drought treatment. Besides, the
transformation of AsTCP17 in Arabidopsis revealed that the protective enzymes, namely polyphenol oxidase (POD)
and superoxide dismutase (SOD), were increased by 0.4 and 0.8 times, respectively. Chlorophyll content was also
increased, while the H2O2 and malondialdehyde (MDA) contents were decreased. Staining assays with 3,3′-
diaminobenzidine (DAB) also suggested that the AsTCP17 downregulates reactive oxygen species (ROS)
accumulation. In addition, overexpression of the AsTCP17 affected the accumulation of drought-related hormones in
plants, and the synthesis of ABA. The expression of AtSVP and AtNCED3, related ABA synthesis pathway genes,
indicated that the level of expression of AtSVP and AtNCED3 was obviously enhanced, with the overexpression of
line 6 showing a 20.6-fold and 7.0-fold increase, respectively. Taken together, our findings systematically analyze the
AsTCPs family at the transcriptome expression level in
Allium senescens, and we also demonstrated that AsTCP17
protein, as a positive regulator, was involved in drought resistance of
Allium senescens. In addition, our research
contributes to the comprehensive understanding of the drought stress defense mechanism in herbaceous plants.
Keywords
Cite This Article
FU, X., ZHAO, J., CAO, D., HE, C., WANG, Z. et al. (2023). Characteristics and expression of the TCP transcription factors family in
Allium senescens reveal its potential roles in drought stress responses.
BIOCELL, 47(4), 905–917.