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Identification and characterization of 5 walnut MYB genes in response to drought stress involved in ABA signaling

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Abstract

Walnut is a popular nut tree species and usually suffers from drought stress. However, little information is available on the mechanism of walnut responding to drought stress, resulting in lack of basic understanding for its resistance. In order to excavate more functional genes that can respond to stressors, and enrich the theoretical basis for walnut resistance, in this study, 5 MYB genes with complete ORFs were identified from J. regia and the basic bio-information as well as expression patterns in different tissues and response to drought and ABA stresses were confirmed using qRT-PCR assay. The results showed that 2 JrMYB genes belong to R1-MYB subfamily and 3 JrMYBs belong to R2R3-MYB, encoding the proteins from 212 to 362 aa in length. The phylogenetic analysis categorized proteins of 5 JrMYBs and 40 Arabidopsis AtMYBs into 10 subgroups. JrMYBs in the same subgroup exhibited significant similarities in the composition of conserved domains and motifs in amino acid sequences and exon/intron organization in DNA sequences. The results of qRT-PCR analysis revealed that JrMYB genes diversely expressed in various tissues. Moreover, the expression values of JrMYBs were upregulated or downregulated significantly under drought and ABA stresses. Most attractively, in contrast with suffering from drought stress alone, the treatments with drought and additional ABA greatly enhanced the transcript levels of JrMYBs. All these results suggested that JrMYB genes play a vital role in plant biological processes and drought as well as ABA stress response, and possibly perform as ABA-dependent drought response transcription factors in plant.

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Funding

The current study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31800510), Special Financial Grant from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017T100782), Northwest A & F University Foundation (TGZX2020-05).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Walnut Research Center, College of Forestry, Northwest A & F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Dapei Li, Shaobing Peng, Shuwen Chen, Ziyi Li, Yi He, Bin Ren & Guiyan Yang

  2. Key Laboratory of Economic Plant Resources Development and Utilization in Shaanxi Province, College of Forestry, Northwest A & F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Guiyan Yang

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  1. Dapei Li
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  2. Shaobing Peng
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  3. Shuwen Chen
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  4. Ziyi Li
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  5. Yi He
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  6. Bin Ren
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  7. Guiyan Yang
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Contributions

Dapei Li and Guiyan Yang conceived and designed the experiments. Dapei Li, Yi He, and Ziyi Li performed the experiments. Shuwen Chen, Bin Ren, and Guiyan Yang assisted in data collection and analysis. Dapei Li, Guiyan Yang and Shaobing Peng drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved this final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Guiyan Yang.

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Li, D., Peng, S., Chen, S. et al. Identification and characterization of 5 walnut MYB genes in response to drought stress involved in ABA signaling. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 27, 1323–1335 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-021-01008-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-021-01008-z

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