Skip Navigation



JXB Advance Access published online on July 14, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany, doi:10.1093/jxb/erp214
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
60/13/3781    most recent
erp214v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Zhang, G.
Right arrow Articles by Ma, Y.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Zhang, G.
Right arrow Articles by Ma, Y.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Zhang, G.
Right arrow Articles by Ma, Y.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

RESEARCH PAPER

Overexpression of the soybean GmERF3 gene, an AP2/ERF type transcription factor for increased tolerances to salt, drought, and diseases in transgenic tobacco

Gaiyun Zhang1,2 *, Ming Chen1 *, Liancheng Li1, Zhaoshi Xu1, Xueping Chen2, Jiaming Guo2 and Youzhi Ma1,{dagger}

1The National Key Facility for Crop Genetic Resources and Genetic Improvement, Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Breeding of Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
2Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: mayzh{at}mail.caas.net.cn

A new member of the AP2/ERF transcription factor family, GmERF3, was isolated from soybean. Sequence analysis showed that GmERF3 contained an AP2/ERF domain of 58 amino acids and two putative nuclear localization signal (NLS) domains. It belonged to a group IV protein in the ERF (ethylene response factor) subfamily as typified by a conserved N-terminal motif [MCGGAI(I/L)]. Expression of GmERF3 was induced by treatments with high salinity, drought, abscisic acid (ABA), salicylic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA), ethylene (ET), and soybean mosaic virus (SMV), whereas there was no significant GmERF3 mRNA accumulation under cold stress treatment. GmERF3 could bind to the GCC box and DRE/CRT element, and was targeted to the nucleus when transiently expressed in onion epidermal cells. The GmERF3 protein fused to the GAL4 DNA-binding domain to activate transcription of reporter genes in yeast. Ectopic expression of the GmERF3 gene in transgenic tobacco plants induced the expression of some PR genes and enhanced resistance against infection by Ralstonia solanacearum, Alternaria alternata, and tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), and gave tolerance to high salinity and dehydration stresses. Furthermore, overexpression of GmERF3 in transgenic tobacco led to higher levels of free proline and soluble carbohydrates compared to wild-type plants under drought conditions. The overall results suggested that GmERF3 as an AP2/ERF transcription factor may play dual roles in response to biotic and abiotic stresses in plants.

Key words: Abiotic stress, biotic stress, ethylene response factor, pathogen

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received 16 March 2009; Revised 18 May 2009 Accepted 15 June 2009


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.