Overexpression of DsEXLA2 gene from Dendrocalamus sinicus accelerates the plant growth rate of Arabidopsis

Expansins play crucial roles in cell wall loosening and a range of life activities involving cell wall modification. Nevertheless, the biological functions of expansin genes during fast growth of bamboo remain unclear. In this study, Dendrocalamus sinicus, the largest and fastest growing bamboo species in the world, was used as the research material, and the full length of DsEXLA2 was cloned. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that DsEXLA2 contained expansin family typical domains (DPBB_1 and Pollen_allerg_1, CDRC motif) and amino acid sequence was highly conserved among different species. The expression level of DsEXLA2 increased from top section to basal section in different internodes. Subcellular localization verified that DsEXLA2 protein was located in the cell wall. Further genetic transformation studies in Arabidopsis indicated that compared with the wild type, DsEXLA2 overexpressed transgenic plants exhibited higher plant height, thicker stem, larger leaf, and less epidermal hair number and smaller stomatal aperture in the prophase and metaphase of growth. In addition, the cellulose content in the stem of transgenic plants was increased, and cell wall was thickened significantly. Moreover, a total of 1656 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified by RNA-seq. The upregulated genes were predominantly enriched in the plant-pathogen interaction, MAPK signaling pathway-plant, plant hormone signal transduction, lipid metabolism and amino acid metabolism, while the downregulated genes were mainly enriched in energy metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, plant hormone signal transduction and ribosome. These data implied that overexpression of DsEXLA2 gene accelerates the plant growth rate of Arabidopsis. This study is helpful to reveal the molecular mechanism of DsEXLA2 in culm growth and development of D. sinicus, and to understand the rapid growth of bamboos.