Project description:Background :Nitrogen (N) supply directly impacts growth and quality in flue-cured tobacco. To decipher molecular responses to N gradients, we integrated transcriptomics and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) on leaves from four N treatments: 0 (inherent soil fertility), 60 (low), 105 (standard), and 150 kg/hm² (high). Results :Phenotypic analysis revealed dose-dependent increases in leaf nitrogen content with higher N application, accompanied by excessive vegetative growth and delayed maturity at 150 kg/hm². Transcriptome sequencing identified 47,216 genes, with differentially expressed genes (DEGs) increasing linearly with N levels (1,458–2,147 DEGs). Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment highlighted nitrogen metabolism pathways, yielding 14 DEGs (11 in assimilation, 3 in transport). Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) uncovered two modules (lightcyan1 and black) strongly associated with N responses, harboring transcription factors NtERF11 (AP2/ERF), NtWRKY3 (WRKY), and NtSRM1 (MYB). Sub-network analysis within these modules identified five hub genes: NtGLN1-1, two uncharacterized genes, NtDFC , and NtGDSL. NtGDSL may enhance nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) through stress-responsive mechanisms, while NtDFC could integrate N signaling with developmental processes. These findings provide novel insights into N regulatory networks in flue-cured tobacco. Conclusions :This study reveals the effects of nitrogen application rates on flue-cured tobacco growth and gene expression. By identifying key transcription factors and genes regulating nitrogen metabolism, it provides a theoretical basis for dissecting nitrogen regulatory mechanisms, optimizing fertilization strategies, and improving nitrogen use efficiency in tobacco production.
Project description:Nitrogen stress is the main abiotic stress factor affecting the carbon and nitrogen balance of flue-cured tobacco. Tandem mass tag (TMT) proteomics was used to compare the differently expressed proteins (DEPs) of flue-cured tobacco under high- (HN) and low- (LN) nitrogen stress, and Gene Ontology (GO) function annotation, Kyoto Encyclopedia for Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis, and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis were conducted. The results showed that the difference between LN and HN stress was mainly reflected in the formation pathways of carbon and nitrogen metabolism.
Project description:Up to now, the mechanism of the effect of topping on tobacco hormone regulation is not clear, and most studies on plant hormone signal transduction pathways rely on gene or transcriptional pathways. In this study, the regulatory mechanism of hormones in roots and leaves of topped and untopped tobacco was studied at the protein level.
Project description:Tobacco, as an important cash crop and model plant, has been studied and explored in various aspects. In China, Yunyan 87 was recognized as a flue-cured tobacco variety and had been widely concerned due to its excellent product quality characteristics. The quality of tobacco products depends on the compound collection of tobacco leaves, including pigments, carbohydrates, amino acids, polyphenols and alkaloids. Present study investigated tobacco seedlings, with the assistant of the untargeted metabonomic technology and the label-free proteomic technology to analyze metabolites and proteins differences in leaf, stem, and root groups respectively. From 298 metabolites and 4993 proteins obtained, there were significant differences in both primary and secondary metabolism involved aroma precursors biosynthesis in seedling tobacco leaves, stems, and roots, such as carbohydrate metabolism, energy metabolism, and amino acid biosynthesis, and secondary metabolism phenylpropanoids, flavonoids and alkaloid biosynthesis in this study. Especially alkaloids metabolites identification results showed nornicotine, anatabine, anatalline, and myosmine, were significantly higher in tobacco roots than in leaves, and stems at seedling stage.
Project description:In this study, a comparative proteomics analysis was performed through the iTRAQ technique and the activity of defense-related enzymes was assessed. We evaluated the expression of differentially expressed proteins and defense response in two flue-cured tobacco cultivars, i.e., K326 (resistant) and Hongda (susceptible) with contrasting resistance to black shank.
Project description:Topping is an important cultivating measure for flue-cured tobacco, and many genes had been found to be differentially expressed in response to topping. But it is still unclear how these genes are regulated. MiRNAs play a critical role in post-transcriptional gene regulation, so we sequenced two sRNA libraries from tobacco roots before and after topping, with a view to exploring transcriptional differences in miRNAs.Two sRNA libraries were generated from tobacco roots before and after topping. Solexa high-throughput sequencing of tobacco small RNAs revealed a total of 12,104,207 and 11,292,018 reads representing 3,633,398 and 3,084,102 distinct sequences before and after topping. The expressions of 136 conserved miRNAs (belonging to 32 families) and 126 new miRNAs (belonging to 77 families) were determined. There were three major conserved miRNAs families (nta-miR156, nta-miR172 and nta-miR171) and two major new miRNAs families (nta-miRn2 and nta-miRn26). All of these identified miRNAs can be folded into characteristic miRNA stem-loop secondary hairpin structures, and qRT-PCR was adopted to validate and measure the expression of miRNAs. Putative targets were identified for 133 out of 136 conserved miRNAs and 126 new miRNAs. Of these miRNAs whose targets had been identified, the miRNAs which change markedly (>2 folds) belong to 53 families and their targets have different biological functions including development, response to stress, response to hormone, N metabolism, C metabolism, signal transduction, nucleic acid metabolism and other metabolism. Some interesting targets for miRNAs had been determined.