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Overexpression of SoACLA-1 Gene Confers Drought Tolerance Improvement in Sugarcane

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A Correction to this article was published on 13 November 2021

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Abstract

Drought is one of the most severe stresses which limit sugarcane production in China. ATP citrate lyase (ACL) is a major enzyme responsible for the production of acetyl-CoA in cytoplasm and plays an important role in plant metabolism and stress response. In this study, sugarcane ACL gene SoACLA-1 was cloned. The plant overexpression vector of SoACLA-1 was built and transformed into sugarcane calli by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, and PCR analysis confirmed that SoACLA-1 gene had been stably present in the T0, T1, and T2 generations of the transgenic sugarcane. In order to evaluate the drought resistance of the transgenic lines and verify the function of SoACLA-1 gene in the transgenic sugarcane, T1 generation of the SoACLA-1 transgenic sugarcane lines was used as the material to investigate the physiological and biochemical characteristics at 0 day, 3 days, 6 days, and 9 days after water stress and rewatering for 3 days. Comprehensive evaluation of four indicators (chlorophyll, malondialdehyde, proline, soluble sugar) related to drought resistance was done with membership fuzzy function method. The results showed that the drought resistance of five transgenic sugarcane lines from strong to weak, in turn, was RT2 > RT4 > RT3 > RT1 > WT, and the recovery ability after drought, in turn, was RT1 > RT2 > RT4 > RT3 > WT. The T2 generation of the SoACLA-1 transgenic sugarcane lines was used to analyze the physiological and biochemical changes and the expression of drought-related genes under water stress. The results showed that the transgenic sugarcane lines were more tolerant to drought as compared with the wild-type plants. Our findings indicated that SoACLA-1 gene plays an important role as a positive factor in response to water stress, and overexpression of SoACLA-1 can enhance drought tolerance in transgenic sugarcane plants.

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Acknowledgments

The present study was supported by the grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFD1000500), Guangxi Special Fund for Scientific Base and Talent (GKAD17195100), Fund for Guangxi Innovation Teams of Modern Agriculture Technology (gjnytxgxcxtd-03-01), and Fund of Guangxi Key Laboratory of Sugarcane Genetic Improvement (16-K-02-01).

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Author notes

  1. Kai Zhu and Chan Huang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Agriculture, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, Guangxi, China

    Kai Zhu, Chan Huang, Thi-Thu Phan, Li-Tao Yang & Yong-Xiu Xing

  2. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Key Laboratory of Sugarcane Biotechnology and Genetic Improvement (Guangxi), Guangxi Key Laboratory of Sugarcane Genetic Improvement, Sugarcane Research Center, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences-Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanning, 530007, China

    Li-Tao Yang, Bao-Qing Zhang & Yang-Rui Li

Authors
  1. Kai Zhu
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  2. Chan Huang
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  3. Thi-Thu Phan
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  4. Li-Tao Yang
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  5. Bao-Qing Zhang
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  6. Yong-Xiu Xing
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  7. Yang-Rui Li
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Contributions

YRL and LTY design the experiment; CH, TTP, and KZ conducted the experiment; CH, BQZ, and KZ analyzed the data; KZ, YXX, and YRL wrote the manuscript; and YXX and YRL revised and finalized the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yong-Xiu Xing or Yang-Rui Li.

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The experiments conducted in this study comply with the current laws of China.

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Key Message

An in vivo functional analysis of a sugarcane ATP citrate lyase gene, namely SoACLA-1, has been conducted using a transgenic approach to understand its overexpression role in sugarcane responsive to water stress. Physiological traits and resistance gene expression analysis indicated that overexpression of SoACLA-1 enhances drought tolerance in transgenic lines compared to the wild type.

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Zhu, K., Huang, C., Phan, TT. et al. Overexpression of SoACLA-1 Gene Confers Drought Tolerance Improvement in Sugarcane. Plant Mol Biol Rep 39, 489–500 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-020-01263-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-020-01263-6

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