Role of MaABI5-like in abscisic acid-induced cold tolerance of 'Fenjiao' banana fruit

Zunyang Song; Xiuhua Lai; Hangcong Chen; Lihua Wang; Xuequn Pang; Yanwei Hao; Wangjin Lu; Weixin Chen; Xiaoyang Zhu; Xueping Li

doi:10.1093/hr/uhac130

Role of MaABI5-like in abscisic acid-induced cold tolerance of 'Fenjiao' banana fruit

Hortic Res. 2022 Jun 3:9:uhac130. doi: 10.1093/hr/uhac130. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Zunyang Song^{1

2}, Xiuhua Lai¹, Hangcong Chen¹, Lihua Wang¹, Xuequn Pang¹, Yanwei Hao¹, Wangjin Lu¹, Weixin Chen¹, Xiaoyang Zhu¹, Xueping Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Postharvest Science of Fruits and Vegetables/Engineering Research Center for Postharvest Technology of Horticultural Crops in South China, Ministry of Education, College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510642, China.
² Key Laboratory of Food Processing Technology and Quality Control in Shandong Province, College of Food Science and Engineering, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an, 271018, China.

Abstract

Abscisic acid (ABA) is a phytohormone essential for plants to respond to various environmental stresses, and abscisic acid-insensitive 5 (ABI5) is a basic leucine zipper transcription factor of the ABA signaling pathway. Exogenous ABA induces cold tolerance in bananas; however, the role of MaABI5-like in ABA-induced cold tolerance remains unexplored. The present study found that exogenous ABA alleviated chilling injury of 'Fenjiao' banana, induced the accumulation of endogenous ABA, unsaturated fatty acids, and flavonoid content, and reduced the saturated fatty acid content. Moreover, ABA treatment upregulated the transcription levels of MaABI5-like, fatty acid desaturation genes, and flavonoid synthesis-related genes during cold storage. More interestingly, MaABI5-like directly interacted with the promoter of genes related to fatty acid desaturation (MaFAD3-1, MaFAD3-4, MaFAD3-5, MaFAD6-2, MaFAD6-3) and flavonoid synthesis (MaPAL-like, MaPAL-like1, MaC4H-like3, Ma4CL-like1, Ma4CL-like10, MaCHS6-4-like, and MaFLS) and activated their expressions. Furthermore, the transient overexpression of MaABI5-like in 'Fenjiao' banana fruit and ectopic expression in tomato plants enhanced cold tolerance and upregulated fatty acid desaturation and flavonoid synthesis-related gene transcript levels. The reduced expression of MaABI5-like by virus-induced gene silencing in 'Fenjiao' banana increased chilling injury and downregulated the expression of fatty acid desaturation and flavonoid synthesis-related genes. Thus, the study indicates that MaABI5-like regulates ABA-induced cold tolerance by increasing unsaturated fatty acid and flavonoid content.