ORIGINAL ARTICLE A novel Dreb2-type gene from Carica papaya confers tolerance under abiotic stress Ana Arroyo-Herrera 6 • Luis Figueroa-Ya ´n ˜ez 1 • Enrique Castan ˜o 2 • Jorge Santamarı ´a 1 • Alejandro Pereira-Santana 1 • Jorge Espadas-Alcocer 1 • Felipe Sa ´nchez-Teyer 1 • Francisco Espadas-Gil 1 • Luis David Alcaraz 3 • Rodolfo Lo ´pez-Go ´mez 4 • Lenin Sa ´nchez-Caldero ´n 5 • Luis Carlos Rodrı ´guez-Zapata 1 Received: 28 September 2015 / Accepted: 23 December 2015 / Published online: 31 December 2015 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract The ethylene-responsive element-binding fac- tors AP2/ERF compose one of the largest families of transcription factors in plants. Dreb2-type gene from Carica papaya L. cv. Maradol was found to be a member of the AP2/ERF family and contains a conserved APE- TALA 2 (AP2) domain located within the group IV of the AP2/ERF superfamily. CpDreb2-type gene is differentially expressed under stress by extreme temperatures. Moreover, genetic transformation of tobacco plants that overexpress the CpDreb2-type gene showed an increase amount of proline and a greater tolerance level to low and high temperature as well as drought experiments. CpDREB2- type protein::GFP is localized mainly in the nuclei of cells from specific organs such as roots and leaves in tobacco seedlings. Our results indicate that CpDreb2-type gene can be used to gain tolerance to extreme conditions of tem- perature and drought in other plants. Keywords Abiotic stress tolerance Á Carica papaya Á DREB2-type gene Á Transcription factor Introduction Transcription factors (TFs) are proteins that modulate transcriptional activity of the RNA polymerases to change the level of transcripts being generated (Udvardi et al. 2007). Stress-related TFs up-regulate the expression of many downstream genes that provide abiotic stress toler- ance, like extreme temperatures, drought and high salinity (Agarwal and Jha 2010; Lata and Prasad 2011; Tang et al. 2014). Some TFs involved in abiotic stress tolerance belong to the superfamily APETALA2 (AP2)/ethylene-re- sponsive element-binding (ERF). The AP2/ERF TFs bind to cis-DRE/CTR (A/GCCGAC) sites located in specific promoter regions that regulate transcriptional expression of stress responsive genes (Bouaziz et al. 2015). The AP2/ ERF superfamily is defined by the AP2/ERF domain, which consists of about 60–70 amino acids involved in DNA binding. This superfamily is composed of three families: The AP2 family proteins that contain two AP2/ Ana Arroyo-Herrera and Luis Figueroa-Ya ´n ˜ez authors contributed equally to this work. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11240-015-0934-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Luis Carlos Rodrı ´guez-Zapata lcrz@cicy.mx 1 Unidad de Biotecnologı ´a, Centro de Investigacio ´n Cientı ´fica de Yucata ´n, 97200 Me ´rida, Yucata ´n, Mexico 2 Unidad de Bioquı ´mica y Biologı ´a Molecular de Plantas, Centro de Investigacio ´n Cientı ´fica de Yucata ´n, 97200 Me ´rida, Yucata ´n, Mexico 3 Departamento de Ecologı ´a de la Biodiversidad, Instituto de Ecologı ´a, Universidad Nacional Auto ´noma de Me ´xico, 04510 Mexico, DF, Mexico 4 Instituto de Investigaciones Quı ´mico Biolo ´gicas, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicola ´s de Hidalgo, 58060 Morelia, Michoaca ´n, Mexico 5 Laboratorio de Biologı ´a Molecular de Plantas, Unidad Acade ´mica de Ciencias Biolo ´gicas, Universidad Auto ´noma de Zacatecas, 98066 Zacatecas, Zacatecas, Mexico 6 Laboratorio de Farmacologı ´a, Facultad de Quı ´mica, Universidad Auto ´noma de Yucata ´n, 97069 Me ´rida, Yucata ´n, Mexico 123 Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult (2016) 125:119–133 DOI 10.1007/s11240-015-0934-9