Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 4, 2025

Measuring Gene Expression in Bombarded Barley Aleurone Layers with Increased Throughput
Published on: March 30, 2018
SPL9 mediates freezing tolerance by directly regulating the expression of CBF2 in Arabidopsis thaliana
Junli Zhao1, Min Shi1, Jing Yu2
1Laboratory of Plant Molecular and Developmental Biology, Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, Hangzhou, 311300, China.
Background:
Freezing stress inhibits plant development and causes significant damage to plants. Plants therefore have evolved a large amount of sophisticated mechanisms to counteract freezing stress by adjusting their growth and development correspondingly. Plant ontogenetic defense against drought, high salt, and heat stresses, has been extensively studied. However, whether the freezing tolerance is associated with ontogenetic development and how the freezing signals are delivered remain unclear.
Results:
In this study, we found that the freezing tolerance was increased with plant age at the vegetative stage. The expressions of microRNA156 (miR156) and SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE 9 (SPL9), playing roles in regulation of ontogenetic development, were induced by cold stress. Overexpression of SPL9 (rSPL9) promoted the expression of C-REPEAT BINDING FACTOR 2 (CBF2) and hereafter enhanced the freezing tolerance. Genetic analysis indicated that the effect of rSPL9 on freezing tolerance is partially restored by cbf2 mutant. Further analysis confirmed that SPL9 directly binds to the promoter of CBF2 to activate the expression of CBF2, and thereafter increased the freezing tolerance.
Conclusions:
Therefore, our study uncovers a new role of SPL9 in fine-tuning CBF2 expression and thus mediating freezing tolerance in plants, and implies a role of miR156-SPL pathway in balancing the vegetative development and freezing response in Arabidopsis.
More Related Videos
12:36Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Assay for the Identification of Arabidopsis Protein-DNA Interactions In Vivo
Published on: January 14, 2016
09:43Identification of Plant Ice-binding Proteins Through Assessment of Ice-recrystallization Inhibition and Isolation Using Ice-affinity Purification
Published on: May 5, 2017
Related Concept Videos
Responses to Heat and Cold Stress
Introduction to Plant Diversity
Gene Regulation During Sporulation
Adaptations that Reduce Water Loss
Cell Signaling in Plants
Responses to Salt Stress