Overexpression of PdeGATA3 results in a dwarf phenotype

Meifeng Liu; Liyu Huang; Yan Zhang; Zhaogui Yan; Nian Wang

doi:10.1093/treephys/tpac086

Overexpression of PdeGATA3 results in a dwarf phenotype

Tree Physiol. 2022 Aug 6:tpac086. doi: 10.1093/treephys/tpac086. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Meifeng Liu¹, Liyu Huang¹, Yan Zhang¹, Zhaogui Yan¹, Nian Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China.
² Hubei Engineering Technology Research Center for Forestry Information, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China.

PMID: 35932456
DOI: 10.1093/treephys/tpac086

Abstract

In previous studies, GA20 oxidase (GA20ox) has been identified to be an important enzyme in the biosynthesis of GA, and SHOOTMERISTEMLESS (STM) can repress the expression of GA20ox. In this study, the GATA transcription factor (TF) PdeGATA3 was identified in the poplar line NL895, and its overexpression (OE) transgenic lines showed a dwarf phenotype. RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) analysis suggested that OE PdeGATA3 could promote the expression of PdeSTM and repress the expression of PdeGA20ox. Therefore, we hypothesized that PdeGATA3 would directly promote the expression of PdeSTM and that PdeSTM would repress the expression of PdeGA20ox. Four experiments, a dual-luciferase reporter assay, GUS transient coexpression assay, yeast one-hybrid (Y1H) assay, and electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), were conducted and verified that PdeGATA3 could promote the expression of PdeSTM by binding GATA-Boxes in its promoter. OE PdeSTM in poplar resulted in a dwarf phenotype and repressed the expression of PdeGA20ox. GA measurement of the OE PdeSTM and PdeGATA3 lines showed that GA3 and GA4 contents were significantly lower than those in the wild type (WT). Accordingly, we put forward a regulation model involving plant height regulation by PdeGATA3, PdeSTM and PdeGA20ox.

Keywords: Dwarf; GA20 oxidase (GA20ox); GATA transcription factor (TF); Gibberellins; Internode length; Petiole length; Populus; SHOOTMERISTEMLESS (STM).