Project description:Seven different Solanaceae species, Potato (Solanum tubersosum), Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), Eggplant (Solanum melongena), Pepper (Capsicum annuum), Tobacco (Nicotiana tabaccum), Petunia and Nicotiana benthiamana were subjected to drought stress. Drought stress was applied by stopping watering of the plants, control plants were normally watered with nutrient solution. Samples were collected at 0, 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 days after the first application of the drought stress. RNA was isolated using Qiagen RNeasy. Keywords: Direct comparison
Project description:A heat and drought tolerant rice cultivar (N22) was grown in the field under control and drought conditions during the dry season in 2013. Drought was applied during early grain filling and resulted in simultaneous heat stress, leading to reduced grain yield and quality. Total RNA was extracted from developing seeds under stress and control (fully flooded) conditions and RNA-seq analysis was performed. These samples are a part of a bigger experiment analysing the responses of three contrasting rice cultivars (N22, Dular, Anjali) to combined heat and drought stress including different organs (developing seeds, flag leaves, flowering spikelets) and developmental stages (early grain filling, flowering) at the transcriptomic level.
Project description:During their co-evolution, plants have learned to counteract bacterial infection by preparing yet uninfected tissues for an enhanced defence response, the so-called systemic acquired resistance or priming response. Primed leaves express a wide range of genes that enhance the defence response once an infection takes place. While hormone-driven defence signalling and generation of defensive metabolites has been well studied, less focus has been set on the reorganization of primary metabolism in systemic leaves. Since primary metabolism plays an essential role for fuelling and optimizing defences in terms of providing energy and chemical building blocks, we investigated medium-term primed changes in primary metabolism at RNA and metabolite levels in systemic leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana plants that were locally infected with Pseudomonas syringae. While known defence genes were still activated 3-4 days after infection, we also found several parts of primary metabolism to be significantly altered. Nitrogen (N)-metabolism and content of amino acids and other N-containing metabolites were significantly reduced, whereas the organic acids fumarate and malate were strongly increased. We suggest that reduction of N-metabolites in systemic, yet non-infected leaves primes defence against bacterial infection by reducing the nutritional value of systemic tissue. The increased organic acids serve as a quickly available metabolic resource of energy and carbon-building blocks for the production of defence metabolites during subsequent secondary infections.
Project description:Transcriptomics study which main goal is to elucidate the programme of gene expression triggered by water stress in leaflets of the drought-tolerant wild-related tomato Solanum pennellii (acc. PE47) compared with domesticated tomato (S. lycopersicum, cv. P73). In this study we used S. lycopersicum (Sl) (cv. P73) and S. pennellii (Sp) (acc. PE47) species displaying remarkable divergences regarding drought tolerance, to investigate the physiological and molecular responses in leaves of plants grown without stress (control) and after four days of water withholding (water stress, WS), when plant water loss was significant but leaves did not show visual dehydration symptoms yet. Significant physiological differences between species were found, showing Sp leaves higher ability to avoid water loss. Leaf transcriptomic analysis showed important constitutive expression differences between Sp and Sl, including genes with unknown function. In relation to the genes specifically induced by drought in Sp, those linked to stomatal closure, cell wall and primary carbohydrate metabolism and, specially, nitrogen metabolism were identified. Thus, genes linked to NH4+ assimilation, GOGAT/GS cycle and the GDH- and GABA-shunt were specifically induced by water stress in leaves of Sp. Our results showed also the up-regulation in Sp of genes involved in JA biosynthesis pathway, which were induced in both conditions, whereas genes involved in ET biosynthesis were specifically induced under WS. Regarding ET signaling, ERF genes were up-regulated by WS in Sp, hinting at the importance of these transcriptional regulators in the drought response of Sp.
Project description:The root-colonizing endophytic fungus Piriformospora indica promotes root and shoot growth of its host plants. We show that growth promotion of Arabidopsis leaves is abolished when the seedlings are grown on media with nitrogen (N) limitation. The fungus neither stimulated the total N content nor did it promote 15NO3- uptake from agar plates to the leaves of the host under N-sufficient or N-limiting conditions. However, when the roots were co-cultivated with 15N-labelled P. indica, more label can be detected in the leaves of N-starved host plants, but not of plants supplied with sufficient N. Amino acid and primary metabolite profiles, as well as expression analyses of N metabolite transporter genes suggest that the fungus alleviates the adaptation of its host to the N limitation condition. P. indica alters the expression of transporter genes which participate in relocation of NO3-, NH4+ and N metabolites from the roots to the leaves under N limitation. We propose that P. indica participates in the plant´s metabolomic adaptation to N limitation by delivering reduced N metabolites to the host, alleviating metabolic N starvation responses, and reprogramming the expression of N-metabolism related genes.
Project description:Drought is a major limiting constraint to faba bean production worldwide, including Tunisia. However, molecular mechanisms underlying faba bean responses to drought stress are not well understood. In this context, transcriptome analysis by RNA-seq was performed to investigate drought-related genes and construct a network of faba bean drought stress response and tolerance. De novo assembly of the transcriptome generated 26,728 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Of these, 13,920 were up-regulated and 12,808 down-regulated in faba bean drought-stressed leaves. Moreover, a total of 10,800 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and 2130 transcription factors involved in major metabolic pathways including abscisic acid (ABA)-dependent and -independent signaling pathway were identified. GO, KOG and KEGG enrichment analyses revealed that these DEGs were involved in several important processes including photosynthesis, flavonoid biosynthesis, response to stimulus and abiotic stress, reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavengers, signal transduction, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites and transporters, suggesting the involvement of these important pathways in faba bean response to water deficit. Various stress proteins such as late embryogenesis abundant proteins (LEA), dehydrins (DHNs) and heat shock proteins (HSPs) have been identified and their expression was robustly upregulated in drought-stressed leaves, indicating their key contribution to drought response and adaptation by conferring protection and providing stability to faba bean plant cellular processes under water deficit. The reliability of the RNA-seq results was confirmed by the analysis of 10 randomly selected genes using qRT-PCR. Taken together, these findings help advancing our knowledge and can guide breeding programs aimed at improving the tolerance of faba bean to drought stress.
Project description:Cassava is a drought–resistant food crop in tropical and subtropical regions. Although cassava is a relatively drought-tolerant species, the development and yields are greatly affected by the adverse drought conditions. Information about molecular breeding will obtain by studying genetic regulatory mechanism. In this study, we demonstrate the drought-tolerant mechanisms in leaves of both cassava varieties(Xinxuan048 and KU50) by using RNA-Seq technique. 1,880 and 2,066 differentially expressed genes(DEGs) were induced by drought stress in leaves of KU50 and Xinxuan048, respectively. DEGs in the response to drought stress involve in many regulated pathways. ROS- and ABA-associated signaling pathways and photosynthesis-associated regulation are mainly elucidated. In addition, alternative splicing and ingle nucleotide polymorphism also involve in drought-stress responses in both cassava varieties, showing their important roles in response to drought stress in leaves. This study not only increases the understanding of physiological and molecular mechanisms to the drought response in cassava, but also lays a solid foundation on the breeding of drought-resistant varieties using molecular methods.
Project description:Plants remember what they have experienced and are thereby able to confront repeated stresses more promptly and strongly. A subset of genes showed increased transcript levels under drought stress conditions, followed by a return to basal levels during recovery (watered) states, and then displayed elevated levels again under subsequent drought conditions. To screen for a set of drought stress memory genes in soybean (Glycine max L. cv. Daepoong), we designed a 180K DNA chip comprising 60-bp probes synthesized in situ to examine 55,588 loci. Through microarray analysis using the DNA chip, we identified 2,165 and 2,385 genes with more than 4-fold increases or decreases in transcript levels, respectively, under initial (first) drought stress conditions, when compared with the non-treated control. The transcript levels of the genes returned to basal levels during recovery (watered) states, then 677 and 987 genes displayed more than 16-fold elevated or reduced levels, respectively, under subsequent (second) drought conditions, when compared to the non-treated control. Gene Ontology analysis classified the drought stress memory genes into several functional categories, including those involved in trehalose biosynthesis and drought tolerance responses. We selected a number of drought stress memory genes encoding various transcription factors, protein phosphatase 2Cs, and late embryogenesis abundant proteins, and confirmed the microarray data by quantitative reverse-transcription real-time PCR. Upon repeated watering and subsequent (third) drought treatment, the elevated levels of the drought stress memory gene transcripts were propagated into newly developed second leaves, although at reduced levels when compared to the second drought treatment on the first leaves.