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ZmDBF3, a Novel Transcription Factor from Maize (Zea mays L.), Is Involved in Multiple Abiotic Stress Tolerance

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Abstract

The dehydration-responsive element-binding (DREB) transcription factors play important roles in regulation of plant responses to abiotic stresses. In the present study, ZmDBF3, a novel DREB transcription factor gene from maize (Zea mays L.), was cloned and characterized. Sequence analyses revealed that ZmDBF3 is classified into A-4 group. It was demonstrated that ZmDBF3 was induced in by salt, drought, cold, and high temperature, as well as by signaling molecules abscisic acid (ABA), but no significant changes were observed under salicylic acid (SA) and methyl jasmonate (MeJA) conditions. The results of transient expression assays and transcriptional activity analysis revealed that ZmDBF3 is a nuclear protein with transcriptional activity. Overexpression of ZmDBF3 in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) exhibited increased survival rate under NaCl, KCl, Na2CO3, NaHCO3, PEG6000, freezing, and sorbitol treatment, compared with the control. Furthermore, ectopic expression of ZmDBF3 in Arabidopsis significantly enhanced tolerance to salt, drought, and freezing tolerance. Taken together, the findings indicated that the ZmDBF3 is a novel member of DREB transcription factor which may act as a regulatory factor involved in multiple stress response pathways.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by grants of the 12th Five-Year Plan Project of Science and Technology Support, China (2012BAD19B04, 2014BAD14B02), by the Research and Development of Industrial Technology Special at Jilin Provincial Development and Reform Commission (2013C001), and by the Ministry of Agriculture Key Project of GM Cultivation of New Varieties (2013ZX08004004), P.R. China.

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    Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.

    Conceived and designed the experiments: Hongyu Pan, Wei Zhou, Chengguo Jia; Performed the experiments: Wei Zhou, Chengguo Jia; Analyzed the data: Wei Zhou, Gang Yu, **liang Liu, **anghui Zhang; Wrote the paper: Chengguo Jia, Wei Zhou, Hongyu Pan; Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: Others.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. College of Plant Science, Jilin University, Changchun, 130062, Jilin, China

      Wei Zhou, Cheng-Guo Jia, **an Wu, Gang Yu, **ang-Hui Zhang, **-Liang Liu & Hong-Yu Pan

    2. The Daqing City Agro-Tech Extension and Service Center, Daqing, 163311, Heilongjiang, China

      Wei Zhou & Rui-Xue Hu

    3. Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Gongzhuling, Jilin, 136100, China

      **an Wu

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    1. Wei Zhou
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    Correspondence to Hong-Yu Pan.

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    Wei Zhou and Cheng-Guo Jia contributed equally to this work.

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    Zhou, W., Jia, CG., Wu, X. et al. ZmDBF3, a Novel Transcription Factor from Maize (Zea mays L.), Is Involved in Multiple Abiotic Stress Tolerance. Plant Mol Biol Rep 34, 353–364 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-015-0926-2

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