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Modifying the Expression of Cysteine Protease Gene PCP Affects Pollen Development, Germination and Plant Drought Tolerance in Maize

Cysteine proteases (CPs) are vital proteolytic enzymes that play critical roles in various plant processes. However, the particular functions of CPs in maize remain largely unknown. We recently identified a pollen-specific CP (named PCP), which highly accumulated on the surface of maize pollen. Here...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Li, Yanhua, Niu, Liangjie, Zhou, Xiaoli, Liu, Hui, Tai, Fuju, Wang, Wei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10138719/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37108569
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24087406
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author Li, Yanhua
Niu, Liangjie
Zhou, Xiaoli
Liu, Hui
Tai, Fuju
Wang, Wei
author_facet Li, Yanhua
Niu, Liangjie
Zhou, Xiaoli
Liu, Hui
Tai, Fuju
Wang, Wei
author_sort Li, Yanhua
collection PubMed
description Cysteine proteases (CPs) are vital proteolytic enzymes that play critical roles in various plant processes. However, the particular functions of CPs in maize remain largely unknown. We recently identified a pollen-specific CP (named PCP), which highly accumulated on the surface of maize pollen. Here, we reported that PCP played an important role in pollen germination and drought response in maize. Overexpression of PCP inhibited pollen germination, while mutation of PCP promoted pollen germination to some extent. Furthermore, we observed that germinal apertures of pollen grains in the PCP-overexpression transgenic lines were excessively covered, whereas this phenomenon was not observed in the wild type (WT), suggesting that PCP regulated pollen germination by affecting the germinal aperture structure. In addition, overexpression of PCP enhanced drought tolerance in maize plants, along with the increased activities of the antioxidant enzymes and the decreased numbers of the root cortical cells. Conversely, mutation of PCP significantly impaired drought tolerance. These results may aid in clarifying the precise functions of CPs in maize and contribute to the development of drought-tolerant maize materials.
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spelling pubmed-101387192023-04-28 Modifying the Expression of Cysteine Protease Gene PCP Affects Pollen Development, Germination and Plant Drought Tolerance in Maize Li, Yanhua Niu, Liangjie Zhou, Xiaoli Liu, Hui Tai, Fuju Wang, Wei Int J Mol Sci Article Cysteine proteases (CPs) are vital proteolytic enzymes that play critical roles in various plant processes. However, the particular functions of CPs in maize remain largely unknown. We recently identified a pollen-specific CP (named PCP), which highly accumulated on the surface of maize pollen. Here, we reported that PCP played an important role in pollen germination and drought response in maize. Overexpression of PCP inhibited pollen germination, while mutation of PCP promoted pollen germination to some extent. Furthermore, we observed that germinal apertures of pollen grains in the PCP-overexpression transgenic lines were excessively covered, whereas this phenomenon was not observed in the wild type (WT), suggesting that PCP regulated pollen germination by affecting the germinal aperture structure. In addition, overexpression of PCP enhanced drought tolerance in maize plants, along with the increased activities of the antioxidant enzymes and the decreased numbers of the root cortical cells. Conversely, mutation of PCP significantly impaired drought tolerance. These results may aid in clarifying the precise functions of CPs in maize and contribute to the development of drought-tolerant maize materials. MDPI 2023-04-17 /pmc/articles/PMC10138719/ /pubmed/37108569 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24087406 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Li, Yanhua
Niu, Liangjie
Zhou, Xiaoli
Liu, Hui
Tai, Fuju
Wang, Wei
Modifying the Expression of Cysteine Protease Gene PCP Affects Pollen Development, Germination and Plant Drought Tolerance in Maize
title Modifying the Expression of Cysteine Protease Gene PCP Affects Pollen Development, Germination and Plant Drought Tolerance in Maize
title_full Modifying the Expression of Cysteine Protease Gene PCP Affects Pollen Development, Germination and Plant Drought Tolerance in Maize
title_fullStr Modifying the Expression of Cysteine Protease Gene PCP Affects Pollen Development, Germination and Plant Drought Tolerance in Maize
title_full_unstemmed Modifying the Expression of Cysteine Protease Gene PCP Affects Pollen Development, Germination and Plant Drought Tolerance in Maize
title_short Modifying the Expression of Cysteine Protease Gene PCP Affects Pollen Development, Germination and Plant Drought Tolerance in Maize
title_sort modifying the expression of cysteine protease gene pcp affects pollen development, germination and plant drought tolerance in maize
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10138719/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37108569
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24087406
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