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Balancing yield trade-off in legumes during multiple stress tolerance via strategic crosstalk by native NAC transcription factors

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Abstract

NAC transcription factors are the bonafide regulators of growth and stress-signaling. Disparate signals converge at NAC-mediated transcriptional programming to initiate a cellular response. Like other stress regulators such as DREB, DDF1, bZIP, PYL, NAC-mediated stress adaptation often compromises beneficial agronomic traits resulting in yield-penalty. Overexpression of these TFs can cause metabolic and hormonal perturbations that exert growth-retardation by activating ABA-hypersensitivity, chloroplast-degradation, or carbon-starvation, resulting in growth arrest and decline in photosynthetic activity. In addition, functional conservation of non-native members is unpredictable due to the non-conserved C-terminal part of the NAC proteins, hence limiting the utilization of well-studied orthologous genes in legumes. The growth/tolerance trade-off is an unresolved mystery. The co-occurrence of multiple stresses further perplexes the broad-range stress improvement of legume crops. To overcome the trade-offs, we need to understand the growth checkpoints that crosstalk with mediated by the stress-responsive gene candidate. Interestingly, NAC proteins appear to be the branch-point of ABA-dependent and ABA independent signaling hence can activate/repress a non-overlapping set of genes associated with stress response and growth to avoid the detrimental crosstalk. Indeed, a versatile NAC member improving both stress adaptation and yield simultaneously through synergistic crosstalk holds the key for sustainable legume improvement. Moreover, the successful manipulation of stress signaling depends on non-interfered ABA signaling of stress responses and growth, as well as strengthening of carbon assimilation. Photosynthesis plays a central role in plant carbohydrate metabolism and stress recovery by restoring the energy status. Hormones and carbohydrates participate together in a complex stress-signal transduction system. For instance, ABA antagonistically regulates growth and sugar signals. Native NAC candidates isolated from robust genetic sources like cowpea can be a useful approach to overcome trade-offs and achieve a desired phenotype. This review provides new insights to improve legume yield via transcriptional reprogramming.

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adapted from Welner et al., 2016 with printable license) (Welner et al. 2016). (b) The unrooted phylogenetic tree derived from the alignment of the 2106 NAC domains from 24 plant species clustered into six major groups (left). Schematic depiction of the NAC family classified into six groups and 16 subgroups (graphic adapted from Pereira-Santana et al., 2015 (right) (Pereira-Santana et al. 2015)

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Abbreviations

ABA:

Abscisic acid

ATAF:

Arabidopsis transcription activation factor

NAC:

NAM/ATAF1//CUC2

NACBS:

NAC binding site

NLS:

Nuclear localization signal

ROS:

Reactive oxygen species

SAM:

Shoot apical meristem

TF:

Transcription factor

TAR:

Transactivation region

TMM:

Transmembrane motif

VuNAC:

Vigna unguiculata NAC

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a research grant from the Program Support Grant Phase-II from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India to L.S. (BT/PR13560/COE/34/44/2015).

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  1. Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India

    Richa Srivastava & Lingaraj Sahoo

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  1. Richa Srivastava
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R.S. wrote the manuscript and L.S. corrected it. All the authors approved the final version of the article.

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Correspondence to Lingaraj Sahoo.

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Srivastava, R., Sahoo, L. Balancing yield trade-off in legumes during multiple stress tolerance via strategic crosstalk by native NAC transcription factors. J. Plant Biochem. Biotechnol. 30, 708–729 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13562-021-00749-y

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