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A cytosolic class I small heat shock protein, RcHSP17.8, of Rosa chinensis confers resistance to a variety of stresses to Escherichia coli , yeast and Arabidopsis thaliana
Author(s) -
JIANG CHANGHUA,
XU JIANYAO,
ZHANG HAO,
ZHANG XUAN,
SHI JINLEI,
LI MIN,
MING FENG
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
plant, cell and environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 200
eISSN - 1365-3040
pISSN - 0140-7791
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3040.2009.01987.x
Subject(s) - arabidopsis thaliana , escherichia coli , osmotic shock , biology , yeast , heat shock protein , cytosol , arabidopsis , recombinant dna , botany , biochemistry , gene , microbiology and biotechnology , enzyme , mutant
Among the heat shock proteins (HSPs) of higher plants, those belonging to the small HSP (sHSP) family remain the least characterized in functional terms. To improve our understanding of sHSPs, we have characterized RcHSP17.8 from Rosa chinensis . Sequence alignments and phylogenetic analysis reveal this to be a cytosolic class I sHSP. RcHSP17.8 expression in R. chinensis was induced by heat, cold, salt, drought, osmotic and oxidative stresses. Recombinant RcHSP17.8 was overexpressed in Escherichia coli and yeast to study its possible function under stress conditions. The recombinant E. coli and yeast cells that accumulated RcHSP17.8 showed improved viability under thermal, salt and oxidative stress conditions compared with control cultures. We also produced transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana that constitutively expressed RcHSP17.8. These plants exhibited increased tolerance to heat, salt, osmotic and drought stresses. These results suggest that R. chinensis cytosolic class I sHSP (RcHSP17.8) has the ability to confer stress resistance not only to E. coli and yeast but also to plants grown under a wide variety of unfavorable environmental conditions.