Ye Shunxing, Tang Yuzhou
College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China.
College of Landscape Architecture and Art Design, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China.
PeerJ. 2025 Feb 17;13:e18956. doi: 10.7717/peerj.18956. eCollection 2025.
Wheat ( L.) is an important food crop and one of the most important grains in the world. With the global climate change, wheat production is increasingly affected by abiotic stress, among which drought, salinity, and other factors have become the main abiotic stress factors restricting the efficient production of wheat. The C2H2-type zinc finger proteins are a common class of transcription factors in plants that play crucial roles in regulating plant growth and development as well as responses to stresses. In this study, the wheat C2H2-type zinc finger protein transcription factor was cloned. Its full-length coding sequence was 720 bp encoding 239 amino acids. TaZFP23 is a typical C2H2-type zinc finger protein. It contains two C2H2 zinc finger domains and an EAR motif, without a transmembrane domain. Promoter -acting element analysis suggested that TaZFP23 might function in abiotic stress responses and plant hormone signal transduction. Subcellular localization and transcriptional activity assays indicated that TaZFP23 encoded a nuclear protein without self-activation activity. Overexpressing TaZFP23 in showed that it negatively regulate d seed germination and plant growth under NaCl, mannitol, and ABA treatments. Additionally, overexpression under NaCl and drought stress in resulted in lower expression levels of several stress-related marker genes compared to those in wild-type plants. This research provides a foundation for further elucidating the functions of C2H2-type zinc finger protein genes and offers promising candidate genes for the development of stress-tolerant wheat cultivars.
小麦（L.）是一种重要的粮食作物，也是世界上最重要的谷物之一。随着全球气候变化，小麦生产越来越受到非生物胁迫的影响，其中干旱、盐度等因素已成为限制小麦高效生产的主要非生物胁迫因素。C2H2型锌指蛋白是植物中一类常见的转录因子，在调节植物生长发育以及对胁迫的反应中发挥着关键作用。在本研究中，克隆了小麦C2H2型锌指蛋白转录因子。其全长编码序列为720 bp，编码239个氨基酸。TaZFP23是一种典型的C2H2型锌指蛋白。它包含两个C2H2锌指结构域和一个EAR基序，没有跨膜结构域。启动子作用元件分析表明，TaZFP23可能在非生物胁迫反应和植物激素信号转导中发挥作用。亚细胞定位和转录活性分析表明，TaZFP23编码一种无自激活活性的核蛋白。在[具体植物名称未给出]中过表达TaZFP23表明，在NaCl、甘露醇和ABA处理下，它对种子萌发和植物生长起负调控作用。此外，在NaCl和干旱胁迫下，[具体植物名称未给出]中TaZFP23过表达导致与野生型植物相比，几个胁迫相关标记基因的表达水平较低。本研究为进一步阐明C2H2型锌指蛋白基因的功能提供了基础，并为培育耐逆小麦品种提供了有前景的候选基因。
