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Heterologous expression of Solanum tuberosum NAC1 gene confers enhanced tolerance to salt stress in transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana

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Abstract

The plant-specific transcription factors NACs (NAM, ATAF1, 2, CUC), one major transcription factor family, play significant roles in various physiological processes including abiotic stresses. In our study, an NAC gene from potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) was cloned and named as StNAC1 for a high-sequence similarity to SlNAC1, a well-known tomato NAC gene regulating multiple stress responses and fruit ripening. StNAC1 gene was significantly induced under salt stress. Then, we constructed StNAC1-overexpressing transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana plants and obtained three homozygous transgenic lines. The phenotypic analysis results showed that StNAC1-overexpressing transgenic plants had not only higher seed germination and green leaf rates, but also accumulated less ROS and more proline than wide-type plants under salt stress, which resulted in improving transgenic plants salt tolerance. These suggested that StNAC1 gene might function as a positive regulator in plant response to salt stress.

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Acknowledgements

WH and BZ designed research. LY conducted experiments. WH and YZ wrote the manuscript. YZ and LY performed in data analysis. All authors read and approved the manuscript. This work was supported by Sichuan Province Science and Technology Support Program (CN) (2020YFH0003).

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  1. Lu Yue and Yong Zhuang have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chengdu Institute of Biology, China Academy of Sciences, No.9 Section 4, Renmin Nan Road, Chengdu, 610041, Sichuan, China

    Lu Yue, Yong Zhuang, Yuanyang Gu, Hui Li, Shengbin Tu & Weizao Huang

  2. Chengdu University of Technology, No.1 East 3rd Road ErXian Bridge ChengHua district, Chengdu, 610059, Sichuan, China

    Lu Yue & Xiaocheng Yang

  3. Southwest JiaoTong University, No. 111, North 1st Section of Second Ring Road, Jinniu District, Chengdu, 610031, Sichuan, China

    Yuanyang Gu

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  1. Lu Yue
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Yue, L., Zhuang, Y., Gu, Y. et al. Heterologous expression of Solanum tuberosum NAC1 gene confers enhanced tolerance to salt stress in transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana. J. Plant Biol. 64, 531–542 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12374-021-09327-0

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