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Unfavorable environmental cues severely affect crop productivity resulting in significant economic losses to farmers. In plants, multiple regulatory genes, such as the WRKY transcription factor (TF) family, modulate the expression of defense genes. However, the role of the pineapple WRKY genes is poorly understood. Here, we studied the pineapple WRKY gene, AcWRKY28, by generating AcWRKY28 over-expressing transgenic pineapple plants. Overexpression of AcWRKY28 enhanced the salt stress resistance in transgenic pineapple lines. Comparative transcriptome analysis of transgenic and wild-type pineapple plants showed that “plant-pathogen interaction” pathway genes, including 9 calcium-dependent protein kinases (CPKs), were up-regulated in AcWRKY28 over-expressing plants. Furthermore, chromatin immunoprecipitation and yeast one-hybrid assays revealed AcCPK12, AcCPK3, AcCPK8, AcCPK1, and AcCPK15 as direct targets of AcWRKY28. Consistently, the study of AcCPK12 over-expressing Arabidopsis lines showed that AcCPK12 enhances salt, drought, and disease resistance. This study shows that AcWRKY28 plays a crucial role in promoting salt stress resistance by activating the expression of AcCPK genes.

Abstract Background Cell polarity establishment and maintenance is indispensable for plant growth and development. In plants, the YABBY transcription factor family has a distinct role in leaf asymmetric polarity establishment and lateral organ initiation. However, for the important sugar crop Saccharum, little information on YABBY genes is available. Results In this study, a total of 20 sequences for 7 SsYABBY genes were identified in the sugarcane genome, designated as SsYABBY1-7 based on their chromosome locations, and characterized by phylogenetic analysis. We provided a high-resolution map of SsYABBYs’ global expression dynamics during vegetative and reproductive organ morphogenesis and revealed that SsYABBY3/4/5 are predominately expressed at the seedling stage of stem and leaf basal zone; SsYABBY2/5/7 are highly expressed in ovules. Besides, cross-species overexpression and/or complementation verified the conserved function of SsYABBY2 in establishing leaf adaxial-abaxial polarity and ovules development. We found that the SsYABBY2 could successfully rescue the leaves curling, carpel dehiscence, and ovule abortion defects in Arabidopsis crc mutant. Conclusions Collectively, our study demonstrates that SsYABBY genes retained a conserved function in establishing and preserving leaf adaxial-abaxial polarity and lateral organ development during evolution.