Genome-Wide Analysis of Serine Hydroxymethyltransferase Genes in Triticeae Species Reveals That TaSHMT3A-1 Regulates Fusarium Head Blight Resistance in Wheat

Ping Hu; Puwen Song; Jun Xu; Qichao Wei; Ye Tao; Yueming Ren; Yongang Yu; Dongxiao Li; Haiyan Hu; Chengwei Li

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.847087

Genome-Wide Analysis of Serine Hydroxymethyltransferase Genes in Triticeae Species Reveals That TaSHMT3A-1 Regulates Fusarium Head Blight Resistance in Wheat

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Feb 10:13:847087. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.847087. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ping Hu¹, Puwen Song¹, Jun Xu², Qichao Wei¹, Ye Tao^{1

3}, Yueming Ren¹, Yongang Yu¹, Dongxiao Li¹, Haiyan Hu¹, Chengwei Li^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Henan Engineering Research Center of Crop Genome Editing, Henan International Joint Laboratory of Plant Genetic Improvement and Soil Remediation, College of Life Science and Technology, Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, China.
² School of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, China.
³ Department of Plant Protection, Sumy National Agrarian University, Sumy, Ukraine.
⁴ College of Biological Engineering, Henan University of Technology, Zhengzhou, China.

Abstract

Serine hydroxymethyltransferase (SHMT) plays a pivotal role in cellular one-carbon, photorespiration pathways and it influences the resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. However, the function of SHMT proteins in wheat remains largely unexplored. In the present study, SHMT genes in five Triticeae species, Oryza sativa, and four dicotyledon species were identified based on whole genome information. The origin history of the target gene was traced by micro-collinearity analysis. Gene expression patterns of TaSHMTs in different tissues, various biotic stresses, exogenous hormones, and two biotic stresses were determined by Quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The function of the selected TaSHMT3A-1 was studied by barley stripe mosaic virus-induced gene silencing in common wheat Bainong207. A total of 64 SHMT members were identified and further classified into two main classes based on the structure of SHMT proteins. The gene structure and motif composition analyses revealed that SHMTs kept relatively conserved within the same subclasses. Interestingly, there was a gene, TdSHMT7B-1, on chromosome 7B of Triticum dicoccoides, but there was no SHMT gene on chromosome 7 of other analyzed Triticeae species; TdSHMT7B-1 had fewer exons and conserved motifs than the genes in the same subclass, suggesting that the gene of TdSHMT7B-1 has a notable evolutionary progress. The micro-collinearity relationship showed that no homologs of TaSHMT3A-1 and its two neighboring genes were found in the collinearity region of Triticum urartu, and there were 27 genes inserted into the collinearity region of T. urartu. Furthermore, qRT-PCR results showed that TaSHMT3A-1 was responsive to abiotic stresses (NaCl and cold), abscisic acid, methyl jasmonate, and hydrogen peroxide. Significantly, upon Fusarium graminearum infection, the expression of TaSHMT3A-1 was highly upregulated in resistant cultivar Sumai3. More importantly, silencing of TaSHMT3A-1 compromises Fusarium head blight resistance in common wheat Bainong207. Our new findings suggest that the TaSHMT3A-1 gene in wheat plays an important role in resistance to Fusarium head blight. This provides a valuable reference for further study on the function of this gene family.

Keywords: Fusarium head blight; SHMT gene family; evolutionary progress; expression pattern; genome-wide analysis; virus-induced gene silencing.