Journal Article

Physiological and transcriptomic analyses of yellow horn (Xanthoceras sorbifolia) provide important insights into salt and saline-alkali stress tolerance

Yan, Xingrong, Zhang, Yunxiang, Guo, Jinping, Wang, Juan

2020

Overview

Yellow horn ( Xanthoceras sorbifolia ) is an oil-rich woody plant cultivated for bio-energy production in China. Soil saline-alkalization is a prominent agricultural-related environmental problem limiting plant growth and productivity. In this study, we performed comparative physiological and transcriptomic analyses to examine the mechanisms of X . sorbifolia seedling responding to salt and alkaline-salt stress. With the exception of chlorophyll content, physiological experiments revealed significant increases in all assessed indices in response to salt and saline-alkali treatments. Notably, compared with salt stress, we observed more pronounced changes in electrolyte leakage (EL) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in response to saline-alkali stress, which may contribute to the greater toxicity of saline-alkali soils. In total, 3,087 and 2,715 genes were differentially expressed in response to salt and saline-alkali treatments, respectively, among which carbon metabolism, biosynthesis of amino acids, starch and sucrose metabolism, and reactive oxygen species signaling networks were extensively enriched, and transcription factor families of bHLH, C2H2, bZIP, NAC, and ERF were transcriptionally activated. Moreover, relative to salt stress, saline-alkali stress activated more significant upregulation of genes related to H + transport, indicating that regulation of intracellular pH may play an important role in coping with saline-alkali stress. These findings provide new insights for investigating the physiological changes and molecular mechanisms underlying the responses of X . sorbifolia to salt and saline-alkali stress.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Abiotic stress / Amino acids / Antioxidants / Biology and Life Sciences / Biosynthesis / China / Chlorophyll / Chlorophyll - metabolism / Chlorophyll content / Computer and Information Sciences / Ecology and Environmental Sciences / Electrolyte leakage / Electrolytes - metabolism / Enzymes / Gene Expression Profiling - methods / Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / Gene Regulatory Networks / Genes / Genetic aspects / Hardiness / High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing / Laboratories / Malondialdehyde / Malondialdehyde - metabolism / Metabolism / Molecular modelling / Oxygen / Oxygen enrichment / Physical Sciences / Physiological aspects / Physiology / Plant growth / Plant Proteins - genetics / Plants / Reactive oxygen species / Saline soils / Salinity tolerance / Salt / Salt stress (Botany) / Salt Tolerance / Salts / Sapindaceae - genetics / Sapindaceae - growth & development / Sapindaceae - metabolism / Seedlings / Sequence Analysis, RNA / Soapberries / Starch / Stress / Stress, Physiological / Sucrose / Sugar / Toxicity / Trees / Variance analysis / Woody plants / Xanthoceras sorbifolia