Abstract
The BRASSINAZOLE-RESISTANT (BZR1) transcription factor family is a key transcription factor downstream of the brassinosteroid (BR) signaling pathway that plays a critical role in plant growth and resistance to environmental stress. Tea plant (Camellia sinensis) is a perennial plant with important economic value. In this study, a total of 5, 6, 7, 8, and 7 CsBZR1s were identified from the genomes of wild tea plant (‘DASZ’) and four tea cultivars (‘Longjing 43,’ ‘Shuchazao,’ ‘Tieguanyin,’ and ‘Huangdan’), respectively. The phylogenetic tree analysis classified the 33 CsBZR1s into four groups, with members in the same classification having similar conserved motifs. Covariance and gene structure analysis revealed that two CsBZR1 genes (DACsBZR1.1, DACsBZR1.4) have high sequence alignment rates among the five tea genomes. One unique CsBZR1 gene present in each of ‘DASZ,’ ‘Longjing 43,’ ‘Shuchazao,’ and ‘Huangdan.’ In comparison, ‘Tieguanyin’ has three specific CsBZR1 genes. The upstream promoter sequences of 33 CsBZR1 genes contain many regulatory elements associated with hormone and stress responses. The expression levels of lj43CsBZR1s and sczCsBZR1s in different tissues of tea plants were significantly different. Under hormonal (GA, ABA, and BR) and abiotic stress (cold, heat, drought, and salt) treatments, most lj43CsBZR1s and sczCsBZR1s showed up-regulation in their expression levels. The relative expression levels of lj43CsBZR1s and sczCsBZR1s under GA and heat treatments were significantly higher than those under other treatments. This study provided a potential theoretical basis for the analysis of the function of CsBZR1 protein and its regulatory mechanism in response to hormone and abiotic stress in tea plants.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahammed GJ, Li X, Liu A, Chen SJ (2020) Brassinosteroids in plant tolerance to abiotic stress. J Plant Growth Regul 39:1451–1464
Chen C, Chen H, Zhang Y, Thomas HR, Frank MH, He Y, Xia R (2020a) TBtools: an integrative toolkit developed for interactive analyses of big biological data. Mol Plant 13:1194–1202
Chen JD, Zheng C, Ma JQ, Jiang CK, Ercisli S, Yao MZ, Chen L (2020b) The chromosome-scale genome reveals the evolution and diversification after the recent tetraploidization event in tea plant. Hortic Res 7:63
Chen X, Wu X, Qiu S, Zheng H, Lu Y, Peng J, Wu G, Chen J, Rao S, Yan FJ (2021) Genome-wide identification and expression profiling of the BZR transcription factor gene family in Nicotiana benthamiana. Int J Mol Sci 22:10379
Cui XY, Gao Y, Guo J, Yu TF, Zheng WJ, Liu YW, Chen J, Xu ZS, Ma YZ (2019) BES/BZR transcription factor TaBZR2 positively regulates drought responses by activation of TaGST1. Plant Physiol 180:605–620
Fan C, Guo G, Yan H, Qiu Z, Liu Q, Zeng B (2018) Characterization of Brassinazole resistant (BZR) gene family and stress induced expression in Eucalyptus grandis. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 24:821–831
Gao Q, Tong W, Li F, Wang Y, Wu Q, Wan X, Xia E (2023) TPIA2: an updated tea plant information archive for Camellia genomics. Nucleic Acids Res. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkad701
Huang W, Ma D, Zaman F, Hao X, Xia L, Zhang E, Zhao H (2023) Identification of the lysine and histidine transporter family in Camellia sinensis and the characterizations in nitrogen utilization. Horti Plant J. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hpj.2023.01.009
Jiroutova P, Oklestkova J, Strnad M (2018) Crosstalk between brassinosteroids and ethylene during plant growth and under abiotic stress conditions. Int J Mol Sci 19:3283
Li Z, He Y (2020) Roles of brassinosteroids in plant reproduction. Int J Mol Sci 21:872
Li Y, He L, Li J, Chen J, Liu C (2018) Genome-wide identification, characterization, and expression profiling of the legume BZR transcription factor gene family. Front Plant Sci 9:1332
Li JW, Li H, Liu ZW, Wang YX, Chen Y, Yang N, Hu ZH, Li T, Zhuang J (2023) Molecular markers in tea plant (Camellia sinensis): applications to evolution, genetic identification, and molecular breeding. Plant Physiol Biochem 198:107704
Luo S, Zhang G, Zhang Z, Wan Z, Liu Z, Lv J, Yu J (2023) Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of BZR gene family and associated responses to abiotic stresses in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). BMC Plant Biol 23:1–13
Lv J, Li Y, Liu Z, Li X, Lei X, Gao C (2020) Response of BpBZR genes to abiotic stress and hormone treatment in Betula platyphylla. Plant Physiol Biochem 151:157–165
Manoli A, Trevisan S, Quaggiotti S, Varotto S (2018) Identification and characterization of the BZR transcription factor family and its expression in response to abiotic stresses in Zea mays L.. Plant Growth Regul 84:423–436
Nolan T, Chen J, Yin Y (2017) Cross-talk of brassinosteroid signaling in controlling growth and stress responses. Biochem J 474:2641–2661
Peleg Z, Blumwald E (2011) Hormone balance and abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants. Curr Opin in Plant Biol 14:290–295
Saha G, Park JI, Jung HJ, Ahmed NU, Kayum MA, Kang JG, Nou IS (2015) Molecular characterization of BZR transcription factor family and abiotic stress induced expression profiling in Brassica rapa. Plant Physiol Biochem 92:92–104
Schmittgen TD, Livak KJ (2008) Analyzing real-time PCR data by the comparative C(T) method. Nat Protoc 3:1101–1108
Upadhyaya H, Panda SK (2013) Abiotic stress responses in tea [Camellia sinensis L. (O) Kuntze]: an overview. Rev Agric Sci 1:1–10
Wang ZY, Nakano T, Gendron J, He J, Chen M, Vafeados D, Yang Y, Fujioka S, Yoshida S, Asami T (2002) Nuclear-localized BZR1 mediates brassinosteroid-induced growth and feedback suppression of brassinosteroid biosynthesis. Dev Cell 2:505–513
Wang YX, Liu ZW, Wu ZJ, Li H, Wang WL, Cui X, Zhuang J (2018) Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of GRAS family transcription factors in tea plant (Camellia sinensis). Sci Rep 8:3949
Wang W, Sun YQ, Li GL, Zhang SY (2019) Genome-wide identification, characterization, and expression patterns of the BZR transcription factor family in sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.). BMC Plant Biol 19:1–12
Wang X, Feng H, Chang Y, Ma C, Wang L, Hao X, Li A, Cheng H, Wang L, Cui P (2020) Population sequencing enhances understanding of tea plant evolution. Nat Commun 11:4447
Wang Y, Chen F, Ma Y, Zhang T, Sun P, Lan M, Li F, Fang W (2021) An ancient whole-genome duplication event and its contribution to flavor compounds in the tea plant (Camellia sinensis). Hortic Res 8(1):176
Wang Y, Zhu Y, Jiang H, Mao Z, Zhang J, Fang H, Wang N (2023) The regulatory module MdBZR1–MdCOL6 mediates brassinosteroid-and light-regulated anthocyanin synthesis in apple. New Phytol 238:1516–1533
Wu ZJ, Tian C, Jiang Q, Li XH, Zhuang J (2016) Selection of suitable reference genes for qRT-PCR normalization during leaf development and hormonal stimuli in tea plant (Camellia sinensis). Sci Rep 6:19748
Yang YZ, Li T, Teng RM, Han MH, Zhuang J (2021) Low temperature effects on carotenoids biosynthesis in the leaves of green and albino tea plant (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze). Sci Hortic 285:110164
Ye H, Liu S, Tang B, Chen J, Xie Z, Nolan TM, Jiang H, Guo H, Lin HY, Li L (2017) RD26 mediates crosstalk between drought and brassinosteroid signalling pathways. Nat Commun 8:14573
Yin Y, Vafeados D, Tao Y, Yoshida S, Asami T, Chory J (2005) A new class of transcription factors mediates brassinosteroid-regulated gene expression in Arabidopsis. Cell 120:249–259
Yin Y, Qin K, Song X, Zhang Q, Zhou Y, Xia X, Yu J (2018) BZR1 transcription factor regulates heat stress tolerance through FERONIA receptor-like kinase-mediated reactive oxygen species signaling in tomato. Plant Cell Physiol 59:2239–2254
Zhang W, Zhang Y, Qiu H, Guo Y, Wan H, Zhang X, Scossa F, Alseekh S, Zhang Q, Wang P (2020) Genome assembly of wild tea tree DASZ reveals pedigree and selection history of tea varieties. Nat Commun 11:3719
Zhang X, Chen S, Shi L, Gong D, Zhang S, Zhao Q, Zhan D, Vasseur L, Wang Y, Yu J (2021) Haplotype-resolved genome assembly provides insights into evolutionary history of the tea plant Camellia sinensis. Nat Genet 53:1250–1259
Zhou P, Jiang H, Li J, Jin Q, Wang Y, Xu Y (2023) Genome-wide identification reveals that BZR1 family transcription factors involved in hormones and abiotic stresses response of lotus (Nelumbo). Horticulturae 9(8):882
Acknowledgements
The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31870681), Provincial Policy Guidance Program North Jiangsu Science and Technology Special Project (SZ-LYG202126), Collection and Creation of Horticultural Crop Germplasm Resources of Jiangsu (JSFEM-202212), Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions Project (PAPD).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
JZ and JWL: conceived and designed the experiments. JWL, PZ, NY, Z-YQ, YC performed the experiments. J-WL, WL and J-YK: analyzed the data. JZ: contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools. J-WL: wrote the paper. JZ, X-HL and XC revised the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Additional information
Handling Editor: Raul Herrera.
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Li, JW., Zhou, P., Yang, N. et al. CsBZR1 Family Transcription Factors in Wild and Cultural Tea Plants and Their Response to Hormone and Abiotic Stress. J Plant Growth Regul 43, 840–853 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-023-11143-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-023-11143-4