Soybean F-Box-Like Protein GmFBL144 Interacts With Small Heat Shock Protein and Negatively Regulates Plant Drought Stress Tolerance

Keheng Xu; Yu Zhao; Yan Zhao; Chen Feng; Yinhe Zhang; Fawei Wang; Xiaowei Li; Hongtao Gao; Weican Liu; Yan Jing; Rachit K Saxena; Xianzhong Feng; Yonggang Zhou; Haiyan Li

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.823529

Soybean F-Box-Like Protein GmFBL144 Interacts With Small Heat Shock Protein and Negatively Regulates Plant Drought Stress Tolerance

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Jun 2:13:823529. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.823529. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Keheng Xu¹, Yu Zhao¹, Yan Zhao¹, Chen Feng¹, Yinhe Zhang¹, Fawei Wang¹, Xiaowei Li¹, Hongtao Gao^{2

3}, Weican Liu¹, Yan Jing^{2

3}, Rachit K Saxena⁴, Xianzhong Feng⁵, Yonggang Zhou^{2

3}, Haiyan Li^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ College of Life Sciences, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun, China.
² College of Tropical Crops, Sanya Nanfan Research Institute, Hainan University, Haikou, China.
³ Hainan Yazhou Bay Seed Laboratory, Sanya, China.
⁴ International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, India.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Soybean Molecular Design Breeding, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China.

Abstract

The F-box gene family is one of the largest gene families in plants. These genes regulate plant growth and development, as well as biotic and abiotic stress responses, and they have been extensively researched. Drought stress is one of the major factors limiting the yield and quality of soybean. In this study, bioinformatics analysis of the soybean F-box gene family was performed, and the role of soybean F-box-like gene GmFBL144 in drought stress adaptation was characterized. We identified 507 F-box genes in the soybean genome database, which were classified into 11 subfamilies. The expression profiles showed that GmFBL144 was highly expressed in plant roots. Overexpression of GmFBL144 increased the sensitivity of transgenic Arabidopsis to drought stress. Under drought stress, the hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and malonaldehyde (MDA) contents of transgenic Arabidopsis were higher than those of the wild type (WT) and empty vector control, and the chlorophyll content was lower than that of the control. Y2H and bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) assays showed that GmFBL144 can interact with GmsHSP. Furthermore, our results showed that GmFBL144 can form SCF ^FBL144 (E3 ubiquitin ligase) with GmSkp1 and GmCullin1. Altogether, these results indicate that the soybean F-box-like protein GmFBL144 may negatively regulate plant drought stress tolerance by interacting with sHSP. These findings provide a basis for molecular genetics and breeding of soybean.

Keywords: F-box protein; Skp1-Cullin1-F-box (SCF) complex; drought stress; protein interaction; segmental duplication; soybean.