Cloning and Functional Analysis of NoMYB60 Gene Involved in Flavonoid Biosynthesis in Watercress (Nasturtium officinale R. Br.)

Xiaoqing Ma; Jiajun Ran; Guihu Mei; Xilin Hou; Xiong You

doi:10.3390/genes13112109

Cloning and Functional Analysis of NoMYB60 Gene Involved in Flavonoid Biosynthesis in Watercress (Nasturtium officinale R. Br.)

Genes (Basel). 2022 Nov 14;13(11):2109. doi: 10.3390/genes13112109.

Authors

Xiaoqing Ma^{1

2}, Jiajun Ran^{1

2}, Guihu Mei^{1

2}, Xilin Hou^{1

2}, Xiong You³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Improvement of Horticultural Crops (East China), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, Engineering Research Center of Germplasm Enhancement and Utilization of Horticultural Crops, Ministry of Education of China, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
² Nanjing Suman Plasma Engineering Research Institute, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
³ College of Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.

Abstract

The MYB60 gene belongs to the R2R3-MYB subfamily, which includes the MYB31/30/96/94 genes. Although these genes have been shown to respond to heat and drought stresses, their role in flavonoid synthesis remains unclear. In this study, NoMYB60 was cloned from watercress and its structure and function were analyzed. Sequence structure analysis showed that NoMYB60 had a highly conserved R2R3 DNA-binding region at the N-terminus. Under the treatment of ABA, SA or MeJA, the expression level of NoMYB60 first significantly increased and then decreased, indicating that ABA, SA and MeJA positively regulated NoMYB60. The subcellular localization of NoMYB60-GFP indicated that NoMYB60 was localized in the nuclear region, which is consistent with the molecular characterization of the transcription factor. Gene silencing experiments were also performed to further test the function of NoMYB60. The result showed that virus-induced silencing of NoMYB60 affected the expression of enzyme genes in flavonoid synthesis pathways and promoted the synthesis of flavonoids. Moreover, we discovered that NoMYB60 interacts with NoBEH1/2. In this study, provides a reference for research on the regulation mechanism of flavonoid synthesis in Cruciferae and other crops.

Keywords: ABA; MYB60; MeJA; Nasturtium officinale R. Br.; NoMYB60; SA; flavonoid synthesis; transcriptional activation activity.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cloning, Molecular
Flavonoids / genetics
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
Nasturtium* / genetics
Nasturtium* / metabolism
Plant Proteins / metabolism

Substances

Plant Proteins
Flavonoids

Grants and funding

This work was partially supported by the Key Projects of the National Key Research and Development Plan (2017YFD0101803), the State Key Program of the Natural Science Foundation of China (31330067), the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-23-A-06), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 11171155, no. 11871268), and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (no. SBK2019043238, BK20171370).