Dataset Information

A toolbox of genes, proteins, metabolites and promoters for improving drought tolerance in soybean includes the metabolite coumestrol and stomatal development genes.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:The purpose of this project was to identify metabolites, proteins, genes, and promoters associated with water stress responses in soybean. A number of these may serve as new targets for the biotechnological improvement of drought responses in soybean (Glycine max). RESULTS:We identified metabolites, proteins, and genes that are strongly up or down regulated during rapid water stress following removal from a hydroponics system. 163 metabolites showed significant changes during water stress in roots and 93 in leaves. The largest change was a root-specific 160-fold increase in the coumestan coumestrol making it a potential biomarker for drought and a promising target for improving drought responses. Previous reports suggest that coumestrol stimulates mycorrhizal colonization and under certain conditions mycorrhizal plants have improved drought tolerance. This suggests that coumestrol may be part of a call for help to the rhizobiome during stress. About 3,000 genes were strongly up-regulated by drought and we identified regulators such as ERF, MYB, NAC, bHLH, and WRKY transcription factors, receptor-like kinases, and calcium signaling components as potential targets for soybean improvement as well as the jasmonate and abscisic acid biosynthetic genes JMT, LOX1, and ABA1. Drought stressed soybean leaves show reduced mRNA levels of stomatal development genes including FAMA-like, MUTE-like and SPEECHLESS-like bHLH transcription factors and leaves formed after drought stress had a reduction in stomatal density of 22.34 % and stomatal index of 17.56 %. This suggests that reducing stomatal density may improve drought tolerance. MEME analyses suggest that ABRE (CACGT/CG), CRT/DRE (CCGAC) and a novel GTGCnTGC/G element play roles in transcriptional activation and these could form components of synthetic promoters to drive expression of transgenes. Using transformed hairy roots, we validated the increase in promoter activity of GmWRKY17 and GmWRKY67 during dehydration and after 20 ?M ABA treatment. CONCLUSIONS:Our toolbox provides new targets and strategies for improving soybean drought tolerance and includes the coumestan coumestrol, transcription factors that regulate stomatal density, water stress-responsive WRKY gene promoters and a novel DNA element that appears to be enriched in water stress responsive promoters.

SUBMITTER: Tripathi P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4746818 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

A toolbox of genes, proteins, metabolites and promoters for improving drought tolerance in soybean includes the metabolite coumestrol and stomatal development genes.

Tripathi Prateek P Rabara Roel C RC Reese R Neil RN Miller Marissa A MA Rohila Jai S JS Subramanian Senthil S Shen Qingxi J QJ Morandi Dominique D Bücking Heike H Shulaev Vladimir V Rushton Paul J PJ

BMC genomics 20160209

<h4>Background</h4>The purpose of this project was to identify metabolites, proteins, genes, and promoters associated with water stress responses in soybean. A number of these may serve as new targets for the biotechnological improvement of drought responses in soybean (Glycine max).<h4>Results</h4>We identified metabolites, proteins, and genes that are strongly up or down regulated during rapid water stress following removal from a hydroponics system. 163 metabolites showed significant changes ...[more]

PMID: 26861168

Similar Datasets

Project description:Simple Summary Drought stress inhibits seed germination, making it one of the primary environmental factors adversely affecting food security. Soybean is more sensitive to drought than other food crops, especially in germination stage. The purpose of our research is to identify the loci related to drought tolerance in soybean during germination. We used 410 soybean accessions to induce drought at germination stage by PEG, and conducted genome-wide association study. A total of 26 SNPs were found to be related to drought tolerance, and there were nine SNP markers located in or adjacent to (within 500 kb) previously reported drought tolerance QTLs. These SNP led to our identification of 41 candidate genes related to drought tolerance. The current analyses provide information and tools for subsequent studies and breeding programs for improving drought tolerance. Abstract Drought stress influences the vigor of plant seeds and inhibits seed germination, making it one of the primary environmental factors adversely affecting food security. The seed germination stage is critical to ensuring the growth and productivity of soybeans in soils prone to drought conditions. We here examined the genetic diversity and drought-tolerance phenotypes of 410 accessions of a germplasm diversity panel for soybean and conducted quantitative genetics analyses to identify loci associated with drought tolerance of seed germination. We uncovered significant differences among the diverse genotypes for four growth indices and five drought-tolerance indices, which revealed abundant variation among genotypes, upon drought stress, and for genotype × treatment effects. We also used 158,327 SNP markers and performed GWAS for the drought-related traits. Our data met the conditions (PCA + K) for using a mixed linear model in TASSEL, and we thus identified 26 SNPs associated with drought tolerance indices for germination stage distributed across 10 chromosomes. Nine SNP sites, including, for example, Gm20_34956219 and Gm20_36902659, were associated with two or more phenotypic indices, and there were nine SNP markers located in or adjacent to (within 500 kb) previously reported drought tolerance QTLs. These SNPs led to our identification of 41 candidate genes related to drought tolerance in the germination stage. The results of our study contribute to a deeper understanding of the genetic mechanisms underlying drought tolerance in soybeans at the germination stage, thereby providing a molecular basis for identifying useful soybean germplasm for breeding new drought-tolerant varieties.

Dataset Information

A toolbox of genes, proteins, metabolites and promoters for improving drought tolerance in soybean includes the metabolite coumestrol and stomatal development genes.

Publications

A toolbox of genes, proteins, metabolites and promoters for improving drought tolerance in soybean includes the metabolite coumestrol and stomatal development genes.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets