Functional characterization of a Glycine soja CaATPase in salt–alkaline stress responses

It is widely accepted that CaATPase family proteins play important roles in plant environmental stress responses. However, up to now, most researches are limited in the reference plants Arabidopsis and rice. The function of CaATPases from non-reference plants was rarely reported, especially its regulatory role in carbonate alkaline stress responses. Hence, in this study, we identified the P-type II CaATPase family genes in soybean genome, determined their chromosomal location and gene architecture, and analyzed their amino acid sequence and evolutionary relationship. Based on above results, we pointed out the existence of gene duplication for soybean CaATPases. Then, we investigated the expression profiles of the ACA subfamily genes in wild soybean (Glycine soja) under carbonate alkaline stress, and functionally characterized one representative gene GsACA1 by using transgenic alfalfa. Our results suggested that GsACA1 overexpression in alfalfa obviously increased plant tolerance to both carbonate alkaline and neutral salt stresses, as evidenced by lower levels of membrane permeability and MDA content, but higher levels of SOD activity, proline concentration and chlorophyll content under stress conditions. Taken together, for the first time, we reported a P-type II CaATPase from wild soybean, GsACA1, which could positively regulate plant tolerance to both carbonate alkaline and neutral salt stresses.