Journal
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2021.746517
Keywords
pepper; phytochrome-interacting factor (PIF); expression profile; salt stress; cold stress
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Funding
- Training Plan for Academic and Technical Leaders of Major Disciplines in Jiangxi Province, China-Young Talents Project [20204BCJL23044]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [32002030, 32160739, 31801904]
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province, China [20202BABL205002]
- Foundation of Jiangxi Educational Committee [GJJ190219]
- Liao Ning Revitalization Talents Program [XLYC1807020]
- Shenyang Young and Middle-aged Science and Technology Innovation Talent Support Program [RC200449]
- Liaoning BaiQianWan Talents Program
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This study identified six pepper PIF genes using bioinformatics methods and revealed their basic characteristics through phylogenetic and motif analysis. It was found that CaPIF8 plays a key role in cold and salt tolerance of pepper, showing different regulatory roles in response to cold and salt stress. These findings enrich our understanding of the biological roles of PIFs in plants.
As a subfamily of basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors, phytochrome-interacting factors (PIFs) participate in regulating light-dependent growth and development of plants. However, limited information is available about PIFs in pepper. In the present study, we identified six pepper PIF genes using bioinformatics-based methods. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the PIFs from pepper and some other plants could be divided into three distinct groups. Motif analysis revealed the presence of many conserved motifs, which is consistent with the classification of PIF proteins. Gene structure analysis suggested that the CaPIF genes have five to seven introns, exhibiting a relatively more stable intron number than other plants such as rice, maize, and tomato. Expression analysis showed that CaPIF8 was up-regulated by cold and salt treatments. CaPIF8-silenced pepper plants obtained by virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) exhibited higher sensitivity to cold and salt stress, with an obvious increase in relative electrolyte leakage (REL) and variations in the expression of stress-related genes. Further stress tolerance assays revealed that CaPIF8 plays different regulatory roles in cold and salt stress response by promoting the expression of the CBF1 gene and ABA biosynthesis genes, respectively. Our results reveal the key roles of CaPIF8 in cold and salt tolerance of pepper, and lay a solid foundation for clarifying the biological roles of PIFs in pepper and other plants.
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