DNA methylation plays an essential role in plant responses to environmental stress. Since drought develops into a rising problem in rice cultivation, investigations on genome-wide DNA methylation in responses to drought stress and in-depth explorations of its association with drought-tolerance are required. For this study, 68 rice accessions were used for an evaluation of their osmotic-tolerance related to 20% PEG6000 simulated physiological traits. The tolerant group revealed significantly higher levels of total antioxidant capacity and higher contents of H2O2 in both normal and osmotic-stressed treatments, as well as higher survival ratios. We furthermore investigated the DNA methylation status in normal, osmotic-stressed, and re-watering treatments via the methylation-sensitive amplification polymorphism (MSAP). The averaged similarity between two rice accessions from tolerant and susceptible groups was approximately 50%, similar with that between two accessions within the tolerant/susceptible group. However, the proportion of overall tolerance-associated epiloci was only 5.2% of total epiloci. The drought-tolerant accessions revealed lower DNA methylation levels in the stressed condition and more de-methylation events when they encountered osmotic stress, compared to the susceptible group. During the recovery process, the drought-tolerant accessions possessed more re-methylation events. Fourteen differentially methylated epiloci (DME) were, respectively, generated in normal, osmotic-stressed, and re-watering treatments. Approximately, 35.7% DME were determined as tolerance-associated epiloci. Additionally, rice accessions with lower methylation degrees on DME in the stressed conditions had a higher survival ratio compared to these with higher methylation degrees. This result is consistent with the lower DNA methylation levels of tolerant accessions observed in the stressed treatment. Methylation degrees on a differentially methylated epilocus may further influence gene regulation in the rice seedling in response to the osmotic stress. All these results indicate that DME generated from a number of genotypes could have higher probabilityies for association with stress-tolerance, rather than DME generated from two genotypes of contrasting tolerance. The DME found in this study are suspected to be good epigenetic markers for the application in drought-tolerant rice breeding. They could also be a valuable tool to study the epigenetic differentiation in the drought-tolerance between upland and lowland rice ecotypes.
The stress-induced epimutations could be inherited over generations and play important roles in plant adaption to stressful environments. Upland rice has been domesticated in water-limited environments for thousands of years and accumulated drought-induced epimutations of DNA methylation, making it epigenetically differentiated from lowland rice. To study the epigenetic differentiation between upland and lowland rice ecotypes on their drought-resistances, the epigenetic variation was investigated in 180 rice landraces under both normal and osmotic conditions via methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP) technique. Great alterations (52.9~54.3% of total individual-locus combinations) of DNA methylation are recorded when rice encountering the osmotic stress. Although the general level of epigenetic differentiation was very low, considerable level of ΦST (0.134~0.187) was detected on the highly divergent epiloci (HDE). The HDE detected in normal condition tended to stay at low levels in upland rice, particularly the ones de-methylated in responses to osmotic stress. Three out of four selected HDE genes differentially expressed between upland and lowland rice under normal or stressed conditions. Moreover, once a gene at HDE was up-/down-regulated in responses to the osmotic stress, its expression under the normal condition was higher/lower in upland rice. This result suggested expressions of genes at the HDE in upland rice might be more adaptive to the osmotic stress. The epigenetic divergence and its influence on the gene expression should contribute to the higher drought-resistance in upland rice as it is domesticated in the water-limited environment.
Drought stress is a bottleneck factor for plant growth and development, especially in epiphytic orchids that absorb moisture mainly from the air. Recent studies have suggested that there are complex transcriptional regulatory networks related to drought stress in Dendrobium sinense. In this study, the transcription and metabolite alterations involved in drought stress response in D. sinense were investigated through RNA-seq and metabolomics. A total of 856 metabolites were identified from stressed and control samples, with 391 metabolites showing significant differences. With PacBio and Illumina RNA sequencing, 72,969 genes were obtained with a mean length of 2,486 bp, and 622 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. Correlation analysis showed 7 differential genes, and 39 differential metabolites were involved in interaction networks. The network analysis of differential genes and metabolites suggested that the pathways of purine metabolism and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis may play an important role in drought response in D. sinense. These results provide new insights and reference data for culturally important medicinal plants and the protection of endangered orchids.
Upland and lowland rices (Oryza sativa) are the two most important rice ecotypes adapted to agricultural ecosystems of contrasting soil water conditions. Consequently, they have distinguished genetic features associated with drought resistance. As they are essential germplasm resources for breeding water-saving and drought-resistant rice, effective methods for discriminating rice ecotypes and evaluating their drought resistances are required. Five and three selective SSR loci respectively for japonica and indica, located in the drought-responding expression sequence tags (EST), were involved in this study. The discriminating index was calculated from the allele frequencies of these EST-SSRs between the two ecotypes. The discriminating index of upland rice was significantly higher than that of lowland rice. Moreover, the discriminating index had distinct distribution patterns between upland and lowland ecotypes. There were ecotype-like gradients of the discriminating index in which most landraces of the corresponding ecotype were located. Using the ecotype-like gradients, we can accurately distinguish upland and lowland rice with a discriminating power of 0.89 in japonica and 0.82 in indica. Noticeably, the discriminating index was significantly correlated with rice drought resistance; therefore, it greatly facilitates the process of drought-resistance screens. As these drought-resistance-associated EST-SSRs were divergently selected among upland and lowland rice, the discriminating index can be well applied in the practices of germplasm collection and breeding. The findings bridge the knowledge gaps between population genetics and breeding practice. Once more informative loci have been involved, the powers for ecotype discrimination and drought-resistance prediction will be improved.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.