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Title: Over-Expression of a Maize N-Acetylglutamate Kinase Gene (ZmNAGK) Improves Drought Tolerance in Tobacco

Abstract

Water deficit is a key limiting factor that affects the growth, development and productivity of crops. It is vital to understand the mechanisms by which plants respond to drought stress. Here an N-acetylglutamate kinase gene, ZmNAGK, was cloned from maize (Zea mays). ZmNAGK was expressed at high levels in maize leaves and at lower levels in root, stem, female flower and male flower. The expression of ZmNAGK was significantly induced by PEG, NaCl, ABA, brassinosteroid and H2O2. The ectopic expression of ZmNAGK in tobacco resulted in higher tolerance to drought compared to plants transformed with empty vector. Further physiological analysis revealed that overexpression of ZmNAGK could enhance the activities of antioxidant defense enzymes, and decrease malondialdehyde content and leakage of electrolyte in tobacco under drought stress. Moreover, the ZmNAGK transgenic tobacco accumulated more arginine and nitric oxide (NO) than control plants under drought stress. In addition, the ZmNAGK transgenic tobaccos activated drought responses faster than vector-transformed plants. Here, these results indicate that ZmNAGK can play a vital role in enhancing drought tolerance by likely affecting the arginine and NO accumulation, and ZmNAGK could be involved in different strategies in response to drought stress.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1]
  1. Nanjing Agricultural Univ., Nanjing (China)
  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
OSTI Identifier:
1492316
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Frontiers in Plant Science
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 1664-462X
Publisher:
Frontiers Research Foundation
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; drought stress; ZmNAGK; tobacco; abiotic stress; arginine; NO

Citation Formats

Liu, Weijuan, Xiang, Yang, Zhang, Xiaoyun, Han, Gaoqiang, Sun, Xiujuan, Sheng, Yu, Yan, Jingwei, Scheller, Henrik Vibe, and Zhang, Aying. Over-Expression of a Maize N-Acetylglutamate Kinase Gene (ZmNAGK) Improves Drought Tolerance in Tobacco. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.3389/fpls.2018.01902.
Liu, Weijuan, Xiang, Yang, Zhang, Xiaoyun, Han, Gaoqiang, Sun, Xiujuan, Sheng, Yu, Yan, Jingwei, Scheller, Henrik Vibe, & Zhang, Aying. Over-Expression of a Maize N-Acetylglutamate Kinase Gene (ZmNAGK) Improves Drought Tolerance in Tobacco. United States. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.01902
Liu, Weijuan, Xiang, Yang, Zhang, Xiaoyun, Han, Gaoqiang, Sun, Xiujuan, Sheng, Yu, Yan, Jingwei, Scheller, Henrik Vibe, and Zhang, Aying. Fri . "Over-Expression of a Maize N-Acetylglutamate Kinase Gene (ZmNAGK) Improves Drought Tolerance in Tobacco". United States. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.01902. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1492316.
@article{osti_1492316,
title = {Over-Expression of a Maize N-Acetylglutamate Kinase Gene (ZmNAGK) Improves Drought Tolerance in Tobacco},
author = {Liu, Weijuan and Xiang, Yang and Zhang, Xiaoyun and Han, Gaoqiang and Sun, Xiujuan and Sheng, Yu and Yan, Jingwei and Scheller, Henrik Vibe and Zhang, Aying},
abstractNote = {Water deficit is a key limiting factor that affects the growth, development and productivity of crops. It is vital to understand the mechanisms by which plants respond to drought stress. Here an N-acetylglutamate kinase gene, ZmNAGK, was cloned from maize (Zea mays). ZmNAGK was expressed at high levels in maize leaves and at lower levels in root, stem, female flower and male flower. The expression of ZmNAGK was significantly induced by PEG, NaCl, ABA, brassinosteroid and H2O2. The ectopic expression of ZmNAGK in tobacco resulted in higher tolerance to drought compared to plants transformed with empty vector. Further physiological analysis revealed that overexpression of ZmNAGK could enhance the activities of antioxidant defense enzymes, and decrease malondialdehyde content and leakage of electrolyte in tobacco under drought stress. Moreover, the ZmNAGK transgenic tobacco accumulated more arginine and nitric oxide (NO) than control plants under drought stress. In addition, the ZmNAGK transgenic tobaccos activated drought responses faster than vector-transformed plants. Here, these results indicate that ZmNAGK can play a vital role in enhancing drought tolerance by likely affecting the arginine and NO accumulation, and ZmNAGK could be involved in different strategies in response to drought stress.},
doi = {10.3389/fpls.2018.01902},
journal = {Frontiers in Plant Science},
number = ,
volume = 9,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jan 04 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Fri Jan 04 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}

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Figures / Tables:

FIGURE 1 FIGURE 1: Alignment and phylogenetic analysis of ZmNAGK with NAGKs from different species. (A) ZmNAGK encodes a protein of 345 amino acid residues and contains an AA-kinase domain. (B) The amino-acid sequences of NAGKs from Arabidopsis thaliana, Brachypodium distachyon, Nicotiana tabacum, Oryza sativa, Setaria italica, Sorghum bicolor, and Zea maysmore » were aligned. Identical and similar residues were shaded in black and gray, respectively. The putative plastid-target sequence, which was predicted by the iPSORT (http://ipsort.hgc.jp/) programs are boxed. (C) Phylogeny tree of NAGKs was calculated in the MEGA 6.0 program. The phylogenetic relationship between the examined sequences was performed using the Neighbor-Joining method with p-distance correction. Bootstrap values were derived from 1000 replicate runs. The accession numbers: AtNAGK (NP_191315.1), BdNAGK-like (XP_003570025.1), NtNAGK-like (XP_016482712.1), OsNAGK1 (XP_015633506.1), OsNAGK2 (BAD88532.1), SiNAGK-like (XP_004976436.1), SbNAGK-like (XP_002446901.2), ZmNAGK (XP_008668008.1).« less

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