The Key Laboratory of Plant Development and Environment Adaptation Biology, Ministry of Education, School of Life Science, Shandong University, 266237, Qingdao, Shandong, P. R. China.
Institute of Vegetable Research, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 250100, Jinan, Shandong, P. R. China.
Nat Commun. 2023 Mar 2;14(1):1200. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-36901-6.
Drought drastically restricts wheat production, so to dissect allelic variations of drought tolerant genes without imposing trade-offs between tolerance and yield is essential to cope with the circumstance. Here, we identify a drought tolerant WD40 protein encoding gene TaWD40-4B.1 of wheat via the genome-wide association study. The full-length allele TaWD40-4B.1 but not the truncated allele TaWD40-4B.1 possessing a nonsense nucleotide variation enhances drought tolerance and grain yield of wheat under drought. TaWD40-4B.1 interacts with canonical catalases, promotes their oligomerization and activities, and reduces HO levels under drought. The knock-down of catalase genes erases the role of TaWD40-4B.1 in drought tolerance. TaWD40-4B.1 proportion in wheat accessions is negatively correlative with the annual rainfall, suggesting this allele may be selected during wheat breeding. The introgression of TaWD40-4B.1 enhances drought tolerance of the cultivar harboring TaWD40-4B.1. Therefore, TaWD40-4B.1 could be useful for molecular breeding of drought tolerant wheat.
干旱极大地限制了小麦的产量，因此在不影响耐受性和产量的情况下，解析耐旱基因的等位变异对于应对这种情况至关重要。在这里，我们通过全基因组关联研究鉴定了小麦中的一个耐旱 WD40 蛋白编码基因 TaWD40-4B.1。全长等位基因 TaWD40-4B.1 而非具有无意义核苷酸变异的截断等位基因 TaWD40-4B.1 增强了小麦在干旱条件下的耐旱性和产量。TaWD40-4B.1 与典型的过氧化氢酶相互作用，促进它们的寡聚化和活性，并降低干旱下的 HO 水平。过氧化氢酶基因的敲低消除了 TaWD40-4B.1 在耐旱性中的作用。小麦品种中 TaWD40-4B.1 的比例与年降雨量呈负相关，表明该等位基因可能在小麦育种过程中被选择。TaWD40-4B.1 的导入增强了含有 TaWD40-4B.1 的品种的耐旱性。因此，TaWD40-4B.1 可用于耐旱小麦的分子育种。
