Auxin Response Factors (ARFs) are potential mediators of auxin action in tomato response to biotic and abiotic stress (Solanum lycopersicum)

PLoS One. 2018 Feb 28;13(2):e0193517. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0193517. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Survival biomass production and crop yield are heavily constrained by a wide range of environmental stresses. Several phytohormones among which abscisic acid (ABA), ethylene and salicylic acid (SA) are known to mediate plant responses to these stresses. By contrast, the role of the plant hormone auxin in stress responses remains so far poorly studied. Auxin controls many aspects of plant growth and development, and Auxin Response Factors play a key role in the transcriptional activation or repression of auxin-responsive genes through direct binding to their promoters. As a mean to gain more insight on auxin involvement in a set of biotic and abiotic stress responses in tomato, the present study uncovers the expression pattern of SlARF genes in tomato plants subjected to biotic and abiotic stresses. In silico mining of the RNAseq data available through the public TomExpress web platform, identified several SlARFs as responsive to various pathogen infections induced by bacteria and viruses. Accordingly, sequence analysis revealed that 5' regulatory regions of these SlARFs are enriched in biotic and abiotic stress-responsive cis-elements. Moreover, quantitative qPCR expression analysis revealed that many SlARFs were differentially expressed in tomato leaves and roots under salt, drought and flooding stress conditions. Further pointing to the putative role of SlARFs in stress responses, quantitative qPCR expression studies identified some miRNA precursors as potentially involved in the regulation of their SlARF target genes in roots exposed to salt and drought stresses. These data suggest an active regulation of SlARFs at the post-transcriptional level under stress conditions. Based on the substantial change in the transcript accumulation of several SlARF genes, the data presented in this work strongly support the involvement of auxin in stress responses thus enabling to identify a set of candidate SlARFs as potential mediators of biotic and abiotic stress responses.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Droughts
  • Floods
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Indoleacetic Acids / metabolism*
  • MicroRNAs / genetics
  • Plant Proteins / genetics
  • Plant Proteins / metabolism*
  • Promoter Regions, Genetic / genetics
  • Salts / pharmacology
  • Solanum lycopersicum / drug effects
  • Solanum lycopersicum / genetics
  • Solanum lycopersicum / metabolism*
  • Solanum lycopersicum / physiology
  • Stress, Physiological* / drug effects
  • Stress, Physiological* / genetics

Substances

  • Indoleacetic Acids
  • MicroRNAs
  • Plant Proteins
  • Salts

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the “Laboratoire d'Excellence” (LABEX) entitled TULIP (ANR-10-LABX-41) and benefited from networking activities within the European COST Action FA1106, from the ANR TomEpiSet (ANR-16-CE20-0014) project, the TomGEM H2020 project, by Hubert-Curien partnership program Volubilis (MA/12/280-27105PL) and CMCU program (08G0906) granted to Dr Habib Khoudi. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.