A cytosolic class I small heat shock protein, RcHSP17.8, of Rosa chinensis confers resistance to a variety of stresses to Escherichia coli, yeast and Arabidopsis thaliana.
Among the heat shock proteins (HSPs) of higher plants, those belonging to the small HSP (sHSP) family remain the least characterized in functional terms. To improve our understanding of sHSPs, we have characterized RcHSP17.8 from Rosa chinensis. Sequence alignments and phylogenetic analysis reveal this to be a cytosolic class I sHSP. RcHSP17.8 expression in R. chinensis was induced by heat, cold, salt, drought, osmotic and oxidative stresses. Recombinant RcHSP17.8 was overexpressed in Escherichia coli and yeast to study its possible function under stress conditions. The recombinant E. coli and yeast cells that accumulated RcHSP17.8 showed improved viability under thermal, salt and oxidative stress conditions compared with control cultures. We also produced transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana that constitutively expressed RcHSP17.8. These plants exhibited increased tolerance to heat, salt, osmotic and drought stresses. These results suggest that R. chinensis cytosolic class I sHSP (RcHSP17.8) has the ability to confer stress resistance not only to E. coli and yeast but also to plants grown under a wide variety of unfavorable environmental conditions.
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, Institute of Genetics, School of Life Science, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai 200433, China.
Changhua
C
Jiang
Jianyao
J
Xu
Hao
H
Zhang
Xuan
X
Zhang
Jinlei
J
Shi
Min
M
Li
Feng
F
Ming
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000378:metabolism; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D003600:Cytosol / Q000378:metabolism; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000378:metabolism; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D017343:Genes, Plant; D050888:Heat-Shock Proteins, Small / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018384:Oxidative Stress; D010802:Phylogeny; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000378:metabolism; D018749:RNA, Plant / Q000235:genetics; D027826:Rosa / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000494:pharmacology; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D013696:Temperature
D050888:Heat-Shock Proteins, Small; D010940:Plant Proteins; D018749:RNA, Plant; D012965:Sodium Chloride