Peng Yushi, Guo Shujuan, Lei Ben, Yu Linhui, Wang Qiuling
Institute of Future Agriculture, State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology for Arid Areas, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China.
BMC Plant Biol. 2025 Jul 30;25(1):994. doi: 10.1186/s12870-025-07066-9.
Plants have evolved multiple strategies to cope with the ever-changing external environment. Autophagy, as one of the crucial mechanisms involved, has been demonstrated to play a pivotal role in plant responses and adaptation to abiotic stresses. However, the precise molecular mechanisms underlying the role of autophagy in mediating cold stress remain to be fully elucidated.
In this study, we demonstrated that autophagy mutants presented increased freezing tolerance under both non-acclimated and cold-acclimated conditions in Arabidopsis. Autophagy positively regulates the expression of anthocyanin biosynthesis-related genes, thereby influencing anthocyanin accumulation in Arabidopsis under low-temperature conditions. Moreover, we found that cold stress directly suppresses the expression of autophagy-related genes and reduces autophagic flux in Arabidopsis. The RNA-seq data revealed that cold-responsive genes were pre-activated in the autophagy mutant atg13ab even before cold treatment. Additionally, we observed constitutive accumulation of the dehydrin protein COR47 in atg13ab mutant.
Taken together, these data suggest that autophagy is a negative regulator of freezing tolerance in Arabidopsis.
植物已经进化出多种策略来应对不断变化的外部环境。自噬作为其中一个关键机制，已被证明在植物对非生物胁迫的响应和适应中起关键作用。然而，自噬在介导冷胁迫中作用的精确分子机制仍有待充分阐明。
在本研究中，我们证明在拟南芥中，自噬突变体在未驯化和冷驯化条件下均表现出增强的抗冻性。自噬正向调节花青素生物合成相关基因的表达，从而影响低温条件下拟南芥中花青素的积累。此外，我们发现冷胁迫直接抑制拟南芥中自噬相关基因的表达并降低自噬通量。RNA测序数据显示，在冷处理之前，自噬突变体atg13ab中的冷响应基因就已被预激活。此外，我们在atg13ab突变体中观察到脱水蛋白COR47的组成型积累。
综上所述，这些数据表明自噬是拟南芥抗冻性的负调节因子。
