Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Title: Functional study of a tomato zinc finger protein (SlZFP) in bacterial wilt and water deficit response Author: 陳雅婷 Ya-Ting Chen Advisor: Dr. Chiu-Ping Cheng(鄭秋萍老師) Abstract: M30 5 Biotic and abiotic stresses cause tremendous crop production losses worldwide. Gathering information and resources on plant defense mechanisms would certainly benefit developing crop protection strategies. Bacterial wilt (BW) is a very complex and serious soil-borne vascular disease of many agronomically important crop species. The causing bacterium, Ralstonia solanacearum (Rs), has an unusual wide host range covering over 200 species and can survive in soil for a long period of time. Additionally, it is known that plant responses to BW and water deficit (WD) share common features. In our previous study, virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) assays reveal that a group of genes selected from tomato microarray analyses play roles in tomato BW-defense. In this study, a tomato zinc-finger protein (SlZFP) is subjected to further study to elucidate its functions in BW and WD. Under normal condition, SlZFP-GFP recombinant protein colocalizes on the cytoskeleton with the microtubule-associated marker protein MAP4 and the actin-associated marker protein talin in Arabidopsis protoplast. SlZFP expression is abundant in tomato flower and mature fruit, suppressed by Rs and pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), while not significantly altered by phytohormones. Additionally, accumulation of SlZFP transcripts is increased by drought treatment, and SlZFP silencing resulted in increased sensitivity to drought stress. Furthermore, silencing of key regulators of defense signaling transduction pathways, including TGA2.2, ERF3, MKK2 and MKK4, led to increased SlZFP expression. These results suggest that SlZFP may play an important role in plant defense responses to disease and water deficit stress. To further decipher functions of SlZFP in biotic and abiotic stresses, various SlZFP-overexpressing and -RNAi transgenic plants have been generated and, will be tested for their responses to various important diseases and abiotic stresses.