WRKY transcription factors play a key role in the tolerance of biotic and abiotic stresses across various crop species, but the function of some WRKY genes, particularly in tomato, remains ...unexplored. Here, we characterize the roles of a previously unstudied WRKY gene, SlWRKY8, in the resistance to pathogen infection and the tolerance to drought and salt stresses. Expression of SlWRKY8 was up‐regulated upon Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pst. DC3000), abiotic stresses such as drought, salt and cold, as well as ABA and SA treatments. The SlWRKY8 protein was localized to the nucleus with no transcription activation in yeast, but it could activate W‐box‐dependent transcription in plants. The overexpression of SlWRKY8 in tomato conferred a greater resistance to the pathogen Pst. DC3000 and resulted in the increased transcription levels of two pathogen‐related genes SlPR1a1 and SlPR7. Moreover, transgenic plants displayed the alleviated wilting or chlorosis phenotype under drought and salt stresses, with higher levels of stress‐induced osmotic substances like proline and higher transcript levels of the stress‐responsive genes SlAREB, SlDREB2A and SlRD29. Stomatal aperature was smaller under drought stress in transgenic plants, maintaining higher water content in leaves compared with wild‐type plants. The oxidative pressure, indicated by the concentration of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and malondialdehyde (MDA), was also reduced in transgenic plants, where we also observed higher levels of antioxidant enzyme activities under stress. Overall, our results suggest that SlWRKY8 functions as a positive regulator in plant immunity against pathogen infection as well as in plant responses to drought and salt stresses.
Abiotic stress severely influences plant growth and development. MYB transcription factors (TFs), which compose one of the largest TF families, play an important role in abiotic stress responses.
We ...identified 139 soybean MYB-related genes; these genes were divided into six groups based on their conserved domain and were distributed among 20 chromosomes (Chrs). Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) indicated that GmMYB118 highly responsive to drought, salt and high temperature stress; thus, this gene was selected for further analysis. Subcellular localization revealed that the GmMYB118 protein located in the nucleus. Ectopic expression (EX) of GmMYB118 increased tolerance to drought and salt stress and regulated the expression of several stress-associated genes in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Similarly, GmMYB118-overexpressing (OE) soybean plants generated via Agrobacterium rhizogenes (A. rhizogenes)-mediated transformation of the hairy roots showed improved drought and salt tolerance. Furthermore, compared with the control (CK) plants, the clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-transformed plants exhibited reduced drought and salt tolerance. The contents of proline and chlorophyll in the OE plants were significantly greater than those in the CK plants, whose contents were greater than those in the CRISPR plants under drought and salt stress conditions. In contrast, the reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA) contents were significantly lower in the OE plants than in the CK plants, whose contents were lower than those in the CRISPR plants under stress conditions.
These results indicated that GmMYB118 could improve tolerance to drought and salt stress by promoting expression of stress-associated genes and regulating osmotic and oxidizing substances to maintain cell homeostasis.
Described herein is an imidazole ring formation strategy for the synthesis of axially chiral N‐arylbenzimidazoles by means of chiral phosphoric acid catalysis. Two sets of conditions were developed ...to transform two classes of 2‐naphthylamine derivatives into structurally diverse N‐arylbenzimidazole atropisomers with excellent chemo‐ and regioselectivity as well as high levels of enantiocontrol. It is worth reflecting on the unique roles played by the nitroso group in this domino reaction. It functions as a linchpin by first offering an electrophilic site (N) for the initial C−N bond formation while the resulting amine performs the nucleophilic addition to form the second C−N bond. Additionally, it could facilitate the final oxidative aromatization as an oxidant. The atropisomeric products could be conveniently elaborated to a series of axially chiral derivatives, enabling the exploitation of N‐arylbenzimidazoles for their potential utilities in asymmetric catalysis.
A benzimidazole ring formation strategy for the synthesis of axially chiral N‐arylbenzimidazoles by means of chiral phosphoric acid catalysis is presented. Two sets of conditions were developed to transform two classes of 2‐naphthylamine derivatives into structurally diverse N‐arylbenzimidazole atropisomers with excellent chemo‐ and regioselectivity as well as high levels of enantiocontrol.
Summary
Abscisic acid (ABA) receptors are considered as the targeted manipulation of ABA sensitivity and water productivity in plants. Regulation of their stability or activity will directly affect ...ABA signalling. Mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades link multiple environmental and plant developmental cues. However, the molecular mechanism of ABA signalling and MAPK cascade interaction remains largely elusive.
TaMPK3 overexpression decreases drought tolerance and wheat sensitivity to ABA, significantly weakening ABA's inhibitory effects on growth. Under drought stress, overexpression lines show lower survival rates, shoot fresh weight and proline content, but higher malondialdehyde levels at seedling stage, as well as decreased grain width and 1000 grain weight in both glasshouse and field conditions at the adult stage. TaMPK3‐RNAi increases drought tolerance.
TaMPK3 interaction with TaPYL4 leads to decreased TaPYL4 levels by promoting its ubiquitin‐mediated degradation, whereas ABA treatment diminishes TaMPK3–TaPYL interactions. In addition, the expression of ABA signalling proteins is impaired in TaMPK3‐overexpressing wheat plants under ABA treatment. The MPK3‐PYL interaction module was found to be conserved across monocots and dicots.
Our results suggest that the MPK3‐PYL module could serve as a negative regulatory mechanism for balancing appropriate drought stress response with normal plant growth signalling in wheat.
Summary
Drought and salt stresses impose major constraints on soybean production worldwide. However, improving agronomically valuable soybean traits under drought conditions can be challenging due to ...trait complexity and multiple factors that influence yield. Here, we identified a nuclear factor Y C subunit (NF‐YC) family transcription factor member, GmNF‐YC14, which formed a heterotrimer with GmNF‐YA16 and GmNF‐YB2 to activate the GmPYR1‐mediated abscisic acid (ABA) signalling pathway to regulate stress tolerance in soybean. Notably, we found that CRISPR/Cas9‐generated GmNF‐YC14 knockout mutants were more sensitive to drought than wild‐type soybean plants. Furthermore, field trials showed that overexpression of GmNF‐YC14 or GmPYR1 could increase yield per plant, grain plumpness, and stem base circumference, thus indicating improved adaptation of soybean plants to drought conditions. Taken together, our findings expand the known functional scope of the NF‐Y transcription factor functions and raise important questions about the integration of ABA signalling pathways in plants. Moreover, GmNF‐YC14 and GmPYR1 have potential for application in the improvement of drought tolerance in soybean plants.
•Six satellite-only precipitation products (SPPs) were evaluated over the globe.•The error sources of five SPPs over mainland China were revealed.•IMERG-Late is the best one of six evaluated SPPs.•A ...power function is observed between RMSE and logarithm of precipitation intensity.•GPM-based SPPs in light rainfall still exhibit large errors.
We executed a comprehensive evaluation and intercomparison between six purely satellite-derived precipitation estimates (i.e., IMERG-Late, IMERG-Early, GSMaP-NRT, GSMaP-MVK, TMPA-RT and PERSIANN-CCS) at global and regional scales for the period from February 2017 to January 2019. The results show that IMERG-Late exhibits the best performance among six evaluated products, while the worst performance was found in GSMaP-NRT and GSMaP-MVK. The root mean squared error (RMSE) has a power function to the logarithm of precipitation intensity in all six satellite products. On the basis of our findings, the RMSE of all products in rainfall events with intensity exceeding 32 mm/day (or 8 mm/h) accounts for beyond 30% of the corresponding precipitation intensity, which might result in a significant impact on the detectability and forecast of flash floods simulated by satellite precipitation. Additionally, both IMERG and GSMaP overestimate the proportions of light rainfall occurrences, and also display relatively larger errors in light precipitation (0.2–0.4 mm/h or 1–2 mm/day) with the RMSE values exceeding 0.5 mm (or 2 mm) at hourly (or daily) time scale. As for the error analysis, we decomposed the total bias of each product into hits, misses and false biases at hourly and 0.1° resolution over mainland China except for TMPA-RT. We found that the false bias is the dominated error sources for these five products in cold season over semi-humid areas despite that the hit bias accounts for a non-negligible proportion for GSMaP suite. The missed precipitation is the dominated error sources of PERSIANN-CCS both in two seasons over most of humid regions, and meanwhile is one of major error sources for other four products. We expect that the findings of this study not only provide some valuable feedbacks for algorithm developers to improve the GPM-based satellite precipitation retrievals, but also provide some guidance for data users across the world.
Retinal neovascularization occurs in various ocular disorders including proliferative diabetic retinopathy and secondary neovascular glaucoma, resulting in blindness. This paper aims to investigate ...the effect of microRNA‐141‐3p (miR‐141‐3p) on retinal neovascularization and retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in glaucoma mice through the Docking protein 5 (DOK5)‐mediated mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway. Chip retrieval and difference analysis were used for the potential mechanism of miR‐141‐3p on glaucoma. All modeled mice were transfected with different expression of mimic or inhibitor. The expressions of miR‐141‐3p, DOK5, and related genes and proteins of the MAPK signaling pathway were detected by Reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot analysis. Cell proliferation, lumen formation, and apoptosis in the retinal vascular epithelial cells and RGCs were detected using Matrigel angiogenesis and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediated dUTP nick‐end labeling assays. Moreover, a total of 63 and 294 differentially expressed genes were obtained in GSE2378 and GSE9944 chips, and 4 genes were within the intersection of the chips. In addition, the results showed that miR‐141‐3p was found to inhibit the DOK5 gene and activate the MAPK pathway. The number of RGCs, the expression of p38, extracellular‐signal‐regulated kinases (ERK), Jun N‐terminal kinase (JNK), IGF‐1, VEGF, HIF1‐α, Bax, caspase‐3, and the extent of p38, ERK, and JNK phosphorylated were decreased with miR‐141‐3p upregulation. Lastly, the results obtained showed that miR‐141‐3p inhibited the proliferation of retinal vascular epithelial cells and inhibited angiogenesis, as well as promoted apoptosis of RGCs. The study suggests that miR‐141‐3p inhibits retinal neovascularization in glaucoma mice by impeding the activation of the DOK5‐mediated MAPK signaling pathway.
The study suggests that microRNA‐141‐3p (miR‐141‐3p) inhibits the apoptosis of RGCs, as well as the retinal neovascularization in glaucoma mice by impeding the activation of the Docking protein 5 (DOK5)‐mediated mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway.
Calmodulin-binding protein 60 (CBP60) members constitute a plant-specific protein family that plays an important role in plant growth and development. In the soybean genome, nineteen CBP60 members ...were identified and analyzed for their corresponding sequences and structures to explore their functions. Among GmCBP60A-1, which primarily locates in the cytomembrane, was significantly induced by drought and salt stresses. The overexpression of
enhanced drought and salt tolerance in
, which showed better state in the germination of seeds and the root growth of seedlings. In the soybean hairy roots experiment, the overexpression of
increased proline content, lowered water loss rate and malondialdehyde (MDA) content, all of which likely enhanced the drought and salt tolerance of soybean seedlings. Under stress conditions, drought and salt response-related genes showed significant differences in expression in hairy root soybean plants of
-overexpressing and hairy root soybean plants of RNAi. The present study identified
as an important gene in response to salt and drought stresses based on the functional analysis of this gene and its potential underlying mechanisms in soybean stress-tolerance.
In agricultural production, fungal diseases significantly impact the yield and quality of cotton (Gossypium spp.) with Verticillium wilt posing a particularly severe threat.
This study is focused on ...investigating the effectiveness of endophytic microbial communities present in the seeds of disease-resistant cotton genotypes in the control of cotton Verticillium wilt. The technique of 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) amplicon sequencing identified a significant enrichment of the Bacillus genus in the resistant genotype Xinluzao 78, which differed from the endophytic bacterial community structure in the susceptible genotype Xinluzao 63. Specific enriched strains were isolated and screened from the seeds of Xinluzao 78 to further explore the biological functions of seed endophytes. A synthetic microbial community (SynCom) was constructed using the broken-rod model, and seeds of the susceptible genotype Xinluzao 63 in this community that had been soaked with the SynCom were found to significantly control the occurrence of Verticillium wilt and regulate the growth of cotton plants. Antibiotic screening techniques were used to preliminarily identify the colonization of strains in the community. These techniques revealed that the strains can colonize plant tissues and occupy ecological niches in cotton tissues through a priority effect, which prevents infection by pathogens.
This study highlights the key role of seed endophytes in driving plant disease defense and provides a theoretical basis for the future application of SynComs in agriculture.
Mitsugumin 53 (MG53) is a tripartite motif family protein that has been reported to attenuate injury via membrane repair in different organs. Contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI) is a common ...complication caused by the administration of iodinated contrast media (CM). While the cytotoxicity induced by CM leading to tubular cell death may be initiated by cell membrane damage, we wondered whether MG53 alleviates CI-AKI. This study was designed to investigate the effect of MG53 on CI-AKI and the underlying mechanism. A rat model of CI-AKI was established, and CI-AKI induced the translocation of MG53 from serum to injury sites on the renal proximal tubular (RPT) epithelia, as illustrated by immunoblot analysis and immunohistochemical staining. Moreover, pretreatment of rats with recombinant human MG53 protein (rhMG53, 2 mg/mL) alleviated iopromide-induced injury in the kidney, which was determined by measuring serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen and renal histological changes. In vitro studies demonstrated that exposure of RPT cells to iopromide (20, 40, and 80 mg/mL) caused cell membrane injury and cell death, which were attenuated by rhMG53 (10 and 50 μg/mL). Mechanistically, MG53 translocated to the injury site on RPT cells and bound to phosphatidylserine to protect RPT cells from iopromide-induced injury. In conclusion, MG53 protects against CI-AKI through cell membrane repair and reducing cell apoptosis; therefore, rhMG53 might be a potential effective means to treat or prevent CI-AKI.
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