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Published on: March 11, 2020
SlMYB2: an R2R3-MYB transcription factor enhancing drought, salt, and cadmium tolerance in Solanum lycopersicum
Shan Fu1,2,3, Fei Liu1, Ying Li1
1College of Life Sciences, Hubei Normal University, Huangshi, 435002, China.
Key Message:
Solanum lycopersicum SlMYB2 enhances drought, salt, and cadmium stress tolerance by upregulating stress-responsive genes, improving proline levels and antioxidant activity, and reducing oxidative damage. MYB transcription factors are widely present in plants and play critical roles in regulating responses to abiotic stresses, yet most remain poorly characterized. In this study, a typical R2R3-MYB gene (SlMYB2) from Solanum lycopersicum was isolated and identified, and its role in abiotic stress response was investigated. Stress-related cis-acting elements were present in the promoter sequence of SlMYB2, such as drought response elements, low-temperature response elements, and ABA response elements. Subcellular localization analysis showed that SlMYB2 is localized in the nucleus. Transactivation activity assay in yeast cells revealed that SlMYB2 has transactivation activity, and its active domain is located in the C-terminal. Drought, salt, and cadmium stress resulted in a rapid induction of SlMYB2 expression in tomato. Furthermore, compared to wild-type plants, SlMYB2-overexpressing Arabidopsis thaliana showed a higher seed germination rate and cotyledon greening rate, along with significantly increased proline content, chlorophyll levels, and peroxidase activity under drought, salt, and cadmium stress. In contrast, the transgenic lines exhibited a significantly lower malondialdehyde content than the wild-type. Expression analysis demonstrated that SlMYB2 overexpression upregulated key drought-, salt-, and cadmium-responsive genes under stress conditions, supporting its central role in the transcriptional regulation of integrated multi-stress tolerance in plants. These results indicated that SlMYB2 acts as a positive regulator in enhancing plant tolerance to drought, salt, and cadmium stress.
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Transcription
Transcription is the process of synthesizing RNA from a DNA sequence by RNA polymerase. It is the first step in producing a protein from a gene sequence. Additionally, many other proteins and regulatory sequences are involved in the proper synthesis of messenger RNA (mRNA). Regulation of transcription is responsible for the differentiation of all the different types of cells and often for the proper cellular response to environmental signals.
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