Flavobacterium sp. strain GJW24 ameliorates drought resistance in Arabidopsis and Brassica

Hani Kim; Og-Geum Woo; Ji Bin Kim; So-Young Yoon; Jong-Shik Kim; Woo Jun Sul; Jee-Yeon Hwang; Jae-Hoon Lee

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1257137

Flavobacterium sp. strain GJW24 ameliorates drought resistance in Arabidopsis and Brassica

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Oct 13:14:1257137. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1257137. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Hani Kim¹, Og-Geum Woo¹, Ji Bin Kim¹, So-Young Yoon², Jong-Shik Kim³, Woo Jun Sul⁴, Jee-Yeon Hwang², Jae-Hoon Lee¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biology Education, Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE, United States.
³ Marine Industry Research Institute for East Sea Rim, Uljin, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Department of Systems Biotechnology, Chung-Ang University, Anseong, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

Candidate strains that contribute to drought resistance in plants have been previously screened using approximately 500 plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) obtained from Gotjawal, South Korea, to further understand PGPR associated with plant drought tolerance. In this study, a selected PGPR candidate, Flavobacterium sp. strain GJW24, was employed to enhance plant drought tolerance. GJW24 application to Arabidopsis increased its survival rate under drought stress and enhanced stomatal closure. Furthermore, GJW24 promoted Arabidopsis survival under salt stress, which is highly associated with drought stress. GJW24 ameliorated the drought/salt tolerance of Brassica as well as Arabidopsis, indicating that the drought-resistance characteristics of GJW24 could be applied to various plant species. Transcriptome sequencing revealed that GJW24 upregulated a large portion of drought- and drought-related stress-inducible genes in Arabidopsis. Moreover, Gene Ontology analysis revealed that GJW24-upregulated genes were highly related to the categories involved in root system architecture and development, which are connected to amelioration of plant drought resistance. The hyper-induction of many drought/salt-responsive genes by GJW24 in Arabidopsis and Brassica demonstrated that the drought/salt stress tolerance conferred by GJW24 might be achieved, at least in part, through regulating the expression of the corresponding genes. This study suggests that GJW24 can be utilized as a microbial agent to offset the detrimental effects of drought stress in plants.

Keywords: Flavobacterium; GJW24; drought tolerance; plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria; salt stress tolerance.

Grants and funding

The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF- 2020R1A6A3A01100030 to HK and NRF-2021R1F1A1045505 to J-HL), by the LB692 Nebraska Biomedical Research Development Fund (to J-YH), and by the Strategic Initiative for Microbiomes in Agriculture and Food, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Republic of Korea (916007021HD040 to J-HL).