Overexpression of AtERF019 delays plant growth and senescence, and improves drought tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana

SCARPECI TE; FREA VS; ZANOR MI; VALLE EM

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BOTANY

OXFORD UNIV PRESS

Lugar: Oxford; Año: 2016

0022-0957

TheAPETALA2 (AP2)/ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR (ERF) transcription factorsuperfamily is involved in plant growth and development, and in environmentalstress responses. Here, an uncharacterized gene of the family, AtERF019, was studied in Arabidopsis thaliana under abioticstress situations. Arabidopsis plants overexpressing AtERF019 (ERF019 lines) showed a delay in flowering time (in 7days) and senescence (in 2 weeks) in comparison to wild-type plants. Theseplants showed increased tolerance towater deficiency that could be explainedby a lower transpiration rate owed to smaller stomata aperture and lowercuticle and cell wall permeability. Furthermore,using bottom-up proteomic approach, proteins known to be produced in response to stress (branched-chain-amino-acidaminotransferase 3, BCAT3; and a zinc finger transcription factor, oxidativestress 2, OSX2) were identified only in plants of an ERF019 line. Additionally, abcat3 mutant was more sensitive todrought stress than wild-type plants. Predicted targets of AtERF019 were OSX2 and genesrelated to cell wall metabolism. These data suggest that AtERF019 could play a primary role in plant growth and development causing an increase inthe tolerance to water deprivation, and assuring their reproductive success.