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Mechanism of the drought tolerance of a transgenic soybean overexpressing the molecular chaperone BiP

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Abstract

Drought is one of major constraints that limits agricultural productivity. Some factors, including climate changes and acreage expansion, indicates towards the need for developing drought tolerant genotypes. In addition to its protective role against endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, we have previously shown that the molecular chaperone binding protein (BiP) is involved in the response to osmotic stress and promotes drought tolerance. Here, we analyzed the proteomic and metabolic profiles of BiP-overexpressing transgenic soybean plants and the corresponding untransformed line under drought conditions by 2DE-MS and GC/MS. The transgenic plant showed lower levels of the abscisic acid and jasmonic acid as compared to untransformed plants both in irrigated and non-irrigated conditions. In contrast, the level of salicylic acid was higher in transgenic lines than in untransformed line, which was consistent with the antagonistic responses mediated by these phytohormones. The transgenic plants displayed a higher abundance of photosynthesis-related proteins, which gave credence to the hypothesis that these transgenic plants could survive under drought conditions due to their genetic modification and altered physiology. The proteins involved in pathways related to respiration, glycolysis and oxidative stress were not signifcantly changed in transgenic plants as compared to untransformed genotype, which indicate a lower metabolic perturbation under drought of the engineered genotype. The transgenic plants may have adopted a mechanism of drought tolerance by accumulating osmotically active solutes in the cell. As evidenced by the metabolic profiles, the accumulation of nine primary amino acids by protein degradation maintained the cellular turgor in the transgenic genotype under drought conditions. Thus, this mechanism of protection may cause the physiological activities including photosynthesis to be active under drought conditions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank to NuBioMol (Center of Analyses of Biomolecules-UFV, Brazil) for the infrastructure and technical assistance. This study was supported by the National Institute of Science and Technology in Plant-Pest Interaction (INCT-IPP), The Brazilian Soybean Genome Consortium (GENOSOJA), the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, BIOAGRO/INCT-IPP, Viçosa, MG, Brazil

    Flaviane Silva Coutinho, Danilo Silva dos Santos, Lucas Leal Lima, Maiana Reis Pimenta, João Carlos da Silva, Juliana Rocha Lopes Soares Ramos, Elizabeth Pacheco Batista Fontes & Humberto Josué de Oliveira Ramos

  2. Center of Analyses of Biomolecules, NuBioMol, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil

    Flaviane Silva Coutinho, Lucas Leal Lima, Camilo Elber Vital, Lázaro Aleixo Santos & Humberto Josué de Oliveira Ramos

  3. Embrapa Recursos Genéticos e Biotecnologia, Brasília, DF, Brazil

    Angela Mehta

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  1. Flaviane Silva Coutinho
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Coutinho, F.S., dos Santos, D.S., Lima, L.L. et al. Mechanism of the drought tolerance of a transgenic soybean overexpressing the molecular chaperone BiP. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 25, 457–472 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-019-00643-x

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