The Phosphorylation of Wild Soybean (Glycine soja) Splicing Factor
GsSCL30a by GsSnRK1 Regulates the Tolerance of Soybean to Alkali Stress
Abstract
The splicing of pre-mRNA can be constitutive or alternative. The
resulting transcripts may play significant roles in plant development
and responses to environmental changes. Wild soybean, as a wild relative
of cultivated soybean, has excellent traits such as alkali tolerance and
is an ideal material for studying stress mechanisms and mining resistant
genes. In this study, we identified a splicing factor GsSCL30a of the SR
family that depends on the GsSnRK1 protein kinase. Y2H and BiFC assays
verified the interaction between GsSnRK1 and GsSCL30a. In vitro
phosphorylation experiments confirmed that GsSnRK1 could phosphorylate
GsSCL30a, and six phosphorylation sites of GsSCL30a by GsSnRK1 were
determined. qRT-PCR results showed that the expression level of
GsSCL30a was highest in wild soybean leaves, and its
transcription level was upregulated under alkali stress. Splicing factor
reporter analysis found that GsSCL30a could self-splice the third
intron, which contains multiple conserved regions of the GAAG motif. In
addition, the phosphorylation of GsSCL30a by GsSnRK1 promoted its
self-splicing. Y2H experiments proved that there is a physical
interaction between GsSCL30a and the U1 snRNP-specific protein U1-70K,
indicating that GsSCL30a plays an important role at the 5’ splicing
site. We overexpressed GsSCL30a-GsSnRK1 in soybean hairy roots.
It was found that OE# GsSCL30a-GsSnRK1 could synergistically
enhance the tolerance of soybean to alkali stress. Our study revealed
the response mechanism of GsSCL30a in soybean under alkali stress
conditions, that is, GsSCL30a relies on GsSnRK1 for phosphorylation
modification during the alkali stress process, which affects the
activity of the splicing factor and then regulates the plant’s response
to alkali stress, providing a new idea for improving the stress
resistance ability of crops.