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Article|28 Jul 2022|OPEN
Involvement of histone deacetylase CsHDA2 in regulating (E)-nerolidol formation in tea (Camellia sinensis) exposed to tea green leafhopper infestation
Dachuan Gu1 ,† , Shuhua Wu1,2 ,† , Zhenming Yu1 ,† , Lanting Zeng1 , Jiajia Qian1,2 , Xiaochen Zhou1,2 , Ziyin Yang,1,2,3 ,
1Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Botany & Key Laboratory of South China Agricultural Plant Molecular Analysis and Genetic Improvement, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 723 Xingke Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou 510650, China
2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
3Center of Economic Botany, Core Botanical Gardens, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 723 Xingke Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou 510650, China
*Corresponding author. E-mail: zyyang@scbg.ac.cn
Dachuan Gu,Shuhua Wu,Zhenming Yu contributed equally to the study.

Horticulture Research 9,
Article number: uhac158 (2022)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhac158
Views: 380

Received: 15 Jan 2022
Accepted: 06 Jul 2022
Published online: 28 Jul 2022

Abstract

Herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) help the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) adapt to environmental stress, and they are also quality-related components of tea. However, the upstream mechanism regulating the herbivore-induced expression of volatile biosynthesis genes is unclear, especially at the level of epigenetic regulation. In this study, similar to the effects of a tea green leafhopper infestation, treatments with exogenous jasmonic acid (JA) and histone deacetylase inhibitors significantly increased the (E)-nerolidol content in tea and induced the expression of the associated biosynthesis gene CsNES. Furthermore, a key transcription factor related to JA signaling, myelocytomatosis 2 (CsMYC2), interacted with histone deacetylase 2 (CsHDA2) in vitro and in vivo. A tea green leafhopper infestation inhibited CsHDA2 expression and decreased CsHDA2 abundance. Moreover, the tea green leafhopper infestation increased H3 and H4 acetylation levels in the promoter region of CsNES, which in turn upregulated the expression of CsNES and increased the (E)-nerolidol content. In this study, we revealed the effects of histone acetylations on the accumulation of HIPVs, while also confirming that CsHDA2–CsMYC2 is an important transcriptional regulatory module for the accumulation of (E)-nerolidol induced by tea green leafhoppers. The results of this study may be useful for characterizing plant aromatic compounds and the main upstream stress-responsive signaling molecules. Furthermore, the study findings will assist researchers clarify the epigenetic regulation influencing plant secondary metabolism in response to external stress.