615 / 2019-04-24 09:12:23

Over-expression of the heat responsive wheat TaHSP23.9 in transgenic Arabidopsis conferring tolerance to heat and salt stresses

TaHSP23.9, small heat shock protein, Heat stress, salt stress, wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), Arabidopsis.

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The small heat shock proteins (sHSP) are stress induced proteins with molecular weights ranging from 12 to 42 kDa, and act as molecular chaperones to prevent the irreversible aggregation of denaturing proteins. A new sHSP gene, TaHSP23.9 was cloned from wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and its function in transgenic Arabidopsis response to heat and salt stresses was examined. Amino acid alignment and phylogenetic tree analysis showed that the TaHSP23.9 contained one conserved structure of alpha-crystallin domain and is closely related to the OsHSP23.2. Quantitative real-time PCR demonstrated that TaHSP23.9 was expressed much higher in filling grains under normal condition and was quickly and strongly induced by heat in young leaves and filling grains. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants constitutively over-expressing TaHSP23.9 had no visible difference or adverse phenotype compared with the wild type but exhibited enhanced tolerance to heat and salt stresses. Besides, we found that the expression level of TaHSP23.9 was significantly higher in a heat-tolerant wheat variety than that in heat-sensitive one. Our results support that the heat responsive TaHSP23.9 may function as a protein chaperone to positively regulate plant responses to heat and salt stresses and can be developed as molecular marker for screening heat-tolerant wheat varieties.