title: Overexpression of VaPAT1, a GRAS transcription factor from Vitis amurensis, confers abiotic stress tolerance in Arabidopsis.
abstract: VaPAT1 functions as a stress-inducible GRAS gene and enhanced cold, drought and salt tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis via modulation of the expression of a series of stress-related genes. The plant-specific GRAS transcription factor family regulates diverse processes involved in plant growth, development and stress responses. In this study, VaPAT1, a GRAS gene from Vitis amurensis was isolated and functionally characterized. Sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis showed that VaPAT1 has a high sequence identity to CmsGRAS and OsCIGR1, which belong to PAT1 branch of GRAS family and function in stress resistance. The transcription of VaPAT1 was markedly induced by stress-related phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) and various abiotic stress treatments such as cold, drought and high salinity, however, it was repressed by exogenous gibberellic acid (GA) application. Overexpression of VaPAT1 increased the cold, drought and high salinity tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis. When compared with wild type (WT) seedlings, the VaPAT1-overexpression lines accumulated higher levels of proline and soluble sugar under these stress treatments. Moreover, stress-related genes such as AtSIZ1, AtCBF1, AtATR1/MYB34, AtMYC2, AtCOR15A, AtRD29A and AtRD29B showed higher expression levels in VaPAT1 transgenic lines than in WT Arabidopsis under normal growth conditions. Together, our results indicated that VaPAT1 functions as a positive transcriptional regulator involved in grapevine abiotic stress responses.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yangyang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Linchuan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Sospeter Karanja
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Karungo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Langlang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yingying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China.|Beijing Key Laboratory of Grape Sciences and Enology and CAS Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shaohua
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China. xinhaiping215@hotmail.com.|Beijing Key Laboratory of Grape Sciences and Enology and CAS Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, People's Republic of China. xinhaiping215@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Haiping
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xin
mesh_terms: D000040:Abscisic Acid / Q000494:pharmacology; D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000235:genetics*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics*; D055864:Droughts; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics*; D005875:Gibberellins / Q000494:pharmacology; D010802:Phylogeny; D010937:Plant Growth Regulators / Q000494:pharmacology; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D055049:Salt Tolerance / Q000235:genetics; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000494:pharmacology; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D027843:Vitis / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D005875:Gibberellins; D010937:Plant Growth Regulators; D010940:Plant Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; D012965:Sodium Chloride; D000040:Abscisic Acid; C007842:gibberellic acid
keywords: Abiotic stress; GRAS transcription factor; Gibberellic acid (GA); Stress-related genes; VaPAT1; Vitis amurensis