Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Drought Stress response Mediated by Biological Processes and Key Pathways in Gossypium darwinii

Abstract Background: The allotetraploid wild cotton species, Gossypium darwinii, possess important traits of stress tolerance and good genetic stability that can be used for cotton improvement. In this study, we analyzed the RNA-seq transcriptomes from leaves of G. darwinii seedlings with and without drought stress. Results: A total of 86.7 million valid reads with an average length of 95.79 bp were generated from the two samples and 58,960 transcripts with a length of more than 500 bp were assembled. We searched the known proteins on the strength of sequence similarity; these transcripts were annotated with COG, KEGG, and GO functional categories. According to gene expression abundance RPKM value, we carried out RT-qPCR analysis to determine the expression pattern of the obtained transcription factors. A total of 58,961 genes was differentially expressed (DEG), with 32,693 and 25,919 genes found to be upregulated and downregulated, respectively. Through gene ontology and KEGG pathways, the upregulated genes were found to associate with all the GO terms, molecular functions (MF), biological process (BP) and cellular components (CC), which are highly linked to enhancing drought stress tolerance. The results obtained provide valuable information and a large number of transcripts, which can be exploited by cotton breeders in developing a more drought stress tolerant cotton germplasm.

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GhGLK1 a Key Candidate Gene From GARP Family Enhances Cold and Drought Stress Tolerance in Cotton

Frontiers in Plant Science ◽

10.3389/fpls.2021.759312 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Jiangna Liu ◽

Teame Gereziher Mehari Mehari ◽

Yanchao Xu ◽

Muhammud Jaward Umer ◽

Yuqing Hou ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Drought Stress ◽

Cold Stress ◽

Candidate Gene ◽

Stress Tolerance ◽

Abiotic Stresses ◽

Cold Treatment ◽

Leaf Damage ◽

Recurrent Parent ◽

Drought Stress Tolerance ◽

Wild Cotton

Drought and low-temperature stresses are the most prominent abiotic stresses affecting cotton. Wild cotton being exposed to harsh environments has more potential to cope with both biotic and abiotic stresses. Exploiting wild cotton material to induce resistant germplasm would be of greater interest. The candidate gene was identified in the BC2F2 population among Gossypium tomentosum and Gossypium hirsutum as wild male donor parent noted for its drought tolerance and the recurrent parent and a high yielding but drought susceptible species by genotyping by sequencing (GBS) mapping. Golden2-like (GLK) gene, which belongs to the GARP family, is a kind of plant-specific transcription factor (TF) that was silenced by virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS). Silencing of GhGLK1 in cotton results in more damage to plants under drought and cold stress as compared with wild type (WT). The overexpression of GhGLK1 in Arabidopsis thaliana showed that the overexpressing plants showed more adaptability than the WT after drought and cold treatments. The results of trypan blue and 3,3′-diaminobenzidine (DAB) staining showed that after drought and cold treatment, the leaf damage in GhGLK1 overexpressed plants was less as compared with the WT, and the ion permeability was also lower. This study suggested that the GhGLK1 gene may be involved in the regulation of drought and cold stress response in cotton. Our current research findings add significantly to the existing knowledge of cold and drought stress tolerance in cotton.

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Assessment of rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes for drought stress tolerance using morpho-physiological indices as a screening technique

Pakistan Journal of Botany ◽

10.30848/pjb2021-1(33) ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 53 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Asma Asma ◽

Iqbal Hussain ◽

Muhammad Yasin Ashraf ◽

Muhammad Arslan Ashraf ◽

Rizwan Rasheed ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Oryza Sativa ◽

Drought Stress ◽

Stress Tolerance ◽

Oryza Sativa L ◽

Screening Technique ◽

Drought Stress Tolerance ◽

Physiological Indices

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Overexpression of the pitaya phosphoethanolamine N-methyltransferase gene (HpPEAMT) enhanced simulated drought stress in tobacco

Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC) ◽

10.1007/s11240-021-02040-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ai-Hua Wang ◽

Lan Yang ◽

Xin-Zhuan Yao ◽

Xiao-Peng Wen

Keyword(s):

Drought Stress ◽

Stress Response ◽

Transgenic Plants ◽

Drought Tolerance ◽

Transgenic Tobacco ◽

Sequence Similarity ◽

Amino Acid Sequence Similarity ◽

Transgenic Tobacco Plants ◽

Wild Type ◽

Tobacco Plants

AbstractPhosphoethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PEAMTase) catalyzes the methylation of phosphoethanolamine to produce phosphocholine and plays an important role in the abiotic stress response. Although the PEAMT genes has been isolated from many species other than pitaya, its role in the drought stress response has not yet been fully elucidated. In the present study, we isolated a 1485 bp cDNA fragment of HpPEAMT from pitaya (Hylocereus polyrhizus). Phylogenetic analysis showed that, during its evolution, HpPEAMT has shown a high degree of amino acid sequence similarity with the orthologous genes in Chenopodiaceae species. To further investigate the function of HpPEAMT, we generated transgenic tobacco plants overexpressing HpPEAMT, and the transgenic plants accumulated significantly more glycine betaine (GB) than did the wild type (WT). Drought tolerance trials indicated that, compared with those of the wild-type (WT) plants, the roots of the transgenic plants showed higher drought tolerance ability and exhibited improved drought tolerance. Further analysis revealed that overexpression of HpPEAM in Nicotiana tabacum resulted in upregulation of transcript levels of GB biosynthesis-related genes (NiBADH, NiCMO and NiSDC) in the leaves. Furthermore, compared with the wild-type plants, the transgenic tobacco plants displayed a significantly lower malondialdehyde (MDA) accumulation and higher activities of the superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) antioxidant enzymes under drought stress. Taken together, our results suggested that HpPEAMT enhanced the drought tolerance of transgenic tobacco.

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Precursor processing by SBT3.8 and phytosulfokine signaling contribute to drought stress tolerance in Arabidopsis

Journal of Experimental Botany ◽

10.1093/jxb/erab017 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nils Stührwohldt ◽

Eric Bühler ◽

Margret Sauter ◽

Andreas Schaller

Keyword(s):

Drought Stress ◽

Osmotic Stress ◽

Stress Tolerance ◽

Serine Proteases ◽

Loss Of Function ◽

Lateral Root Development ◽

Osmotic Stress Tolerance ◽

Stress Symptoms ◽

C Terminus ◽

Peptide Precursor

Abstract Increasing drought stress poses a severe threat to agricultural productivity. Plants, however, evolved numerous mechanisms to cope with such environmental stress. Here we report that the stress-induced production of a peptide signal contributes to stress tolerance. The expression of phytosulfokine (PSK) peptide precursor genes, and transcripts of three subtilisin-like serine proteases, SBT1.4, SBT3.7 and SBT3.8 were found to be up-regulated in response to osmotic stress. Stress symptoms were enhanced in sbt3.8 loss-of-function mutants and could be alleviated by PSK treatment. Osmotic stress tolerance was improved in plants overexpressing the precursor of PSK1 (proPSK1) or SBT3.8 resulting in higher fresh weight and improved lateral root development in the transgenic compared to wild-type plants. We further showed that SBT3.8 is involved in the biogenesis of the bioactive PSK peptide. ProPSK1 was cleaved by SBT3.8 at the C-terminus of the PSK pentapeptide. Processing by SBT3.8 depended on the aspartic acid residue directly following the cleavage site. ProPSK1 processing was impaired in the sbt3.8 mutant. The data suggest that increased expression in response to osmotic stress followed by the post-translational processing of proPSK1 by SBT3.8 leads to the production of PSK as a peptide signal for stress mitigation.

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Exogenous Application of Brassinosteroid 24-Norcholane 22(S)-23-Dihydroxy Type Analogs to Enhance Water Deficit Stress Tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms22031158 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 22 (3) ◽

pp. 1158

Author(s):

Katy Díaz ◽

Luis Espinoza ◽

Rodrigo Carvajal ◽

Evelyn Silva-Moreno ◽

Andrés F. Olea ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Arabidopsis Thaliana ◽

Drought Stress ◽

Stress Tolerance ◽

Water Deficit ◽

Alternative Pathway ◽

Recovery Period ◽

Homogeneous Solution ◽

Water Deficit Stress ◽

Marker Genes ◽

Exogenous Application

Brassinosteroids (BRs) are plant hormones that play an essential role in plant development and have the ability to protect plants against various environmental stresses, such as low and high temperature, drought, heat, salinity, heavy metal toxicity, and pesticides. Mitigation of stress effects are produced through independent mechanisms or by interaction with other important phytohormones. However, there are few studies in which this property has been reported for BRs analogs. Thus, in this work, the enhancement of drought stress tolerance of A. thaliana was assessed for a series of 2-deoxybrassinosteroid analogs. In addition, the growth-promoting activity in the Rice Lamina Inclination Test (RLIT) was also evaluated. The results show that analog 1 exhibits similar growth activity as brassinolide (BL; used as positive control) in the RLIT bioassay. Interestingly, both compounds increase their activities by a factor of 1.2–1.5 when they are incorporated to polymer micelles formed by Pluronic F-127. On the other hand, tolerance to water deficit stress of Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings was evaluated by determining survival rate and dry weight of seedlings after the recovery period. In both cases, the effect of analog 1 is higher than that exhibited by BL. Additionally, the expression of a subset of drought stress marker genes was evaluated in presence and absence of exogenous applied BRs. Results obtained by qRT-PCR analysis, indicate that transcriptional changes of AtDREBD2A and AtNCED3 genes were more significant in A. thaliana treated with analog 1 in homogeneous solution than in that treated with BL. These changes suggest the activation of alternative pathway in response to water stress deficit. Thus, exogenous application of BRs synthetic analogs could be a potential tool for improvement of crop production under stress conditions.

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