TaSK5, an abiotic stress-inducible GSK3/shaggy-like kinase from wheat, confers salt and drought tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis

• TaSK5, a subgroup I GSK3/shaggy-like kinase from wheat was cloned and functionally characterized.
• TaSK5 is responsive to multiple abiotic stress factors.
• TaSK5 is functional in both yeast and Arabidopsis.
• Expression of TaSK5 confers salt and drought tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis.
• A set of osmotic/drought responsive genes is up-regulated in 35S:TaSK5 Arabidopsis.

A novel cold-inducible GSK3/shaggy-like kinase, TaSK5, was isolated from winter wheat using a macroarray-based differential screening approach. TaSK5 showed high similarity to Arabidopsis subgroup I GSK3/shaggy-like kinases ASK-alpha, AtSK-gamma and ASK-epsilon. RNA gel blot analyses revealed TaSK5 induction by cold and NaCl treatments and to a lesser extent by drought treatment. TaSK5 functionally complemented the cold- and salt-sensitive phenotypes of a yeast GSK3/shaggy-like kinase mutant, △mck1. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing TaSK5 cDNA showed enhanced tolerance to salt and drought stresses. By contrast, the tolerance of the transgenic plants to freezing stress was not altered. Microarray analysis revealed that a number of abiotic stress-inducible genes were constitutively induced in the transgenic Arabidopsis plants, suggesting that TaSK5 may function in a novel signal transduction pathway that appears to be unrelated to DREB1/CBF regulon and may involve crosstalk between abiotic and hormonal signals.