Abstract
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is an important food crop and one of the most important grains in the world. With the global climate change, wheat production is increasingly affected by abiotic stress, among which drought, salinity, and other factors have become the main abiotic stress factors restricting the efficient production of wheat. The C2H2-type zinc finger proteins are a common class of transcription factors in plants that play crucial roles in regulating plant growth and development as well as responses to stresses. In this study, the wheat C2H2-type zinc finger protein transcription factor TaZFP23 was cloned. Its full-length coding sequence was 720 bp encoding 239 amino acids. TaZFP23 is a typical C2H2-type zinc finger protein. It contains two C2H2 zinc finger domains and an EAR motif, without a transmembrane domain. Promoter cis-acting element analysis suggested that TaZFP23 might function in abiotic stress responses and plant hormone signal transduction. Subcellular localization and transcriptional activity assays indicated that TaZFP23 encoded a nuclear protein without self-activation activity. Overexpressing TaZFP23 in Arabidopsis thaliana showed that it negatively regulate d seed germination and plant growth under NaCl, mannitol, and ABA treatments. Additionally, TaZFP23 overexpression under NaCl and drought stress in Arabidopsis resulted in lower expression levels of several stress-related marker genes compared to those in wild-type plants. This research provides a foundation for further elucidating the functions of C2H2-type zinc finger protein genes and offers promising candidate genes for the development of stress-tolerant wheat cultivars.