Liu Lei, Sun Yanchao, Di Pengcheng, Cui Yakun, Meng Qingchang, Wu Xiaming, Chen Yanping, Yuan Jianhua
Provincial Key Laboratory of Agrobiology, Institute of Food Crops, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing, China.
College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China.
Front Plant Sci. 2022 May 6;13:894710. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.894710. eCollection 2022.
Salinity has become a crucial environmental factor seriously restricting maize ( L.) growth, development and productivity. However, how plants respond to salt stress is still poorly understood. In this study, we report that a maize brassinosteroid-signaling kinase gene plays a significant role in salt stress response. Expression pattern analysis revealed that the transcript level of was upregulated by NaCl treatment both in maize leaves, roots, and stems. Phenotypic and physiological analysis showed that overexpression of in maize improved salt tolerance by reducing the malondialdehyde (MDA) content, the percentage of electrolyte leakage, O and HO accumulation under salt stress, relying on the increases of antioxidant defense enzyme activities and proline content. qRT-PCR analysis showed that overexpression of also positively modulated the expression levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS)-scavenging and proline biosynthesis-related genes under salt stress. Moreover, immunoprecipitation-mass spectrometry (IP-MS) assay and firefly luciferase complementation imaging (LCI) assay showed that ZmBSK1 could associate with heat shock protein ZmHSP8 and 14-3-3-like protein ZmGF14-6, and their gene expression levels could be significantly induced by NaCl treatment in different maize tissues. Our findings unravel the new function of ZmBSK1 in salt stress response, which provides the theoretical bases for the improvement of maize salt resistance.
盐度已成为严重限制玉米（L.）生长、发育和生产力的关键环境因素。然而，植物如何响应盐胁迫仍知之甚少。在本研究中，我们报道了一个玉米油菜素类固醇信号激酶基因在盐胁迫响应中起重要作用。表达模式分析表明，在玉米叶片、根和茎中，NaCl处理均上调了该基因的转录水平。表型和生理分析表明，在玉米中过表达该基因可通过降低盐胁迫下丙二醛（MDA）含量、电解质渗漏率、O和HO积累来提高耐盐性，这依赖于抗氧化防御酶活性和脯氨酸含量的增加。qRT-PCR分析表明，在盐胁迫下，过表达该基因还能正向调节活性氧（ROS）清除和脯氨酸生物合成相关基因的表达水平。此外，免疫沉淀-质谱（IP-MS）分析和萤火虫荧光素酶互补成像（LCI）分析表明，ZmBSK1可与热休克蛋白ZmHSP8和14-3-3样蛋白ZmGF14-6相互作用，并且在不同玉米组织中，NaCl处理可显著诱导它们的基因表达水平。我们的研究结果揭示了ZmBSK1在盐胁迫响应中的新功能，为提高玉米抗盐性提供了理论依据。
