A wheat lipid transfer protein 3 could enhance the basal thermotolerance and oxidative stress resistance of Arabidopsis

• TaLTP3 could respond to drought, salt and heat stress.
• Overexpression of TaLTP3 conferred thermotolerance to yeast and Arabidopsis.
• TaLTP3 overexpressed Arabidopsis accumulates less ROS after heat stress.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the major grain crops, and heat stress adversely affects wheat production in many regions of the world. Previously, we found a heat-responsive gene named Lipid Transfer Protein 3 (TaLTP3) in wheat. TaLTP3 was deduced to be regulated by cold, ABA, MeJA, Auxin and oxidative stress according to cis-acting motifs in its promoter sequences. In this study, we show that TaLTP3 is responsive to prolonged water deficit, salt or ABA treatment in wheat seedlings. Also, TaLTP3 accumulation was observed after the plant suffered from heat stress both at the seedling and the grain-filling stages. TaLTP3 protein was localized in the cell membrane and cytoplasm of tobacco epidermal cells. Overexpression of TaLTP3 in yeast imparted tolerance to heat stress compared to cells expressing the vector alone. Most importantly, transgenic Arabidopsis plants engineered to overexpress TaLTP3 showed higher thermotolerance than control plants at the seedling stage. Further investigation indicated that transgenic lines decreased H2O2 accumulation and membrane injury under heat stress. Taken together, our results demonstrate that TaLTP3 confers heat stress tolerance possibly through reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging.