Abstract
Plants are often subjected to unfavorable growing conditions, such as a limited supply of nutrients. Macroautophagy (autophagy) is an intracellular recycling process that targets unwanted proteins or damaged organelles, thus providing the nitrogen and carbon needed for survival and new plant growth during different phases of development and nutrient deprivation. During the formation of autophagosomes, AuTophaGy-related protein 7 (ATG7) is involved in both the ATG8 and ATG12 conjugation pathways. We isolated two ATG7 orthologs—MdATG7a and MdATG7b—from ‘Golden Delicious’ apple (Malus domestica Borkh.). Both were differentially responsive to leaf senescence, nitrogen depletion, and oxidative stresses at the transcriptional level. Heterologous expression of MdATG7b in Arabidopsis accelerated vegetative growth and facilitated the transition into reproductive phase, while also increasing the number of lateral branches, alleviating the negative effects of salt stress on seed germination and conferring tolerance to nitrogen- and carbon starvation. These results suggest that, as one of the important autophagy-related genes, MdATG7b enhances plant tolerance to nitrogen and carbon limitations, and it might be used as an important candidate for breeding crops with improved tolerance to nutrient-starvation stress.
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Abbreviations
- AD:
-
Adenylation domain
- ATG:
-
AuTophaGy-related protein
- C:
-
Carbon
- CDS:
-
Coding DNA sequence
- DTT:
-
Dithiothreitol
- ER:
-
Endoplasmic reticulum
- Kan:
-
Kanamycin
- LD:
-
Long days
- MV:
-
Methyl viologen
- N:
-
Nitrogen
- ORF:
-
Open reading frame
- qRT-PCR:
-
Quantitative real-time PCR
- SD:
-
Short days
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31601735) and by the earmarked fund for the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-28).
Author contributions
P. W. and F. W. M. conceived and designed the experiments; P. W. and X. S. performed the experiments; N. W. and X. J. helped in collecting data; P. W. wrote the manuscript; F. W. M. critically revised the article.
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Ping Wang and Xun Sun have contributed equally to this work.
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11240_2016_1070_MOESM2_ESM.tif
Supplementary Fig. 2 Yeast complementary test in atg7 mutant with MdATG7a and MdATG7b under nitrogen-starvation conditions. (TIF 844 KB)
11240_2016_1070_MOESM3_ESM.tif
Supplementary Fig. 3 Immunoblot analysis of the accumulation of MdATG7b-GFP fusion protein in 2-week-old Arabidopsis seedlings of WT and MdATG7b OE lines (OE-2, -4, -6, -12) with anti-GFP antibody. Protein extract loading amount was referenced by immunoblot analysis with an anti-Actin antibody. (TIF 174 KB)
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Wang, P., Sun, X., Wang, N. et al. Ectopic expression of an autophagy-associated MdATG7b gene from apple alters growth and tolerance to nutrient stress in Arabidopsis thaliana . Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult 128, 9–23 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-016-1070-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-016-1070-x