Expression analysis in response to drought stress in soybean: shedding light on the regulation of metabolic pathway genes

Abstract

Metabolomics analysis of wild type Arabidopsis thaliana plants, under control and drought stress conditions revealed several metabolic pathways that are induced under water deficit. The metabolic response to drought stress is also associated with ABA dependent and independent pathways, allowing a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms in this model plant. Through combining an in silico approach and gene expression analysis by quantitative real-time PCR, the present work aims at identifying genes of soybean metabolic pathways potentially associated with water deficit. Digital expression patterns of Arabidopsis genes, which were selected based on the basis of literature reports, were evaluated under drought stress condition by Genevestigator. Genes that showed strong induction under drought stress were selected and used as bait to identify orthologs in the soybean genome. This allowed us to select 354 genes of putative soybean orthologs of 79 Arabidopsis genes belonging to 38 distinct metabolic pathways. The expression pattern of the selected genes was verified in the subtractive libraries available in the GENOSOJA project. Subsequently, 13 genes from different metabolic pathways were selected for validation by qPCR experiments. The expression of six genes was validated in plants undergoing drought stress in both pot-based and hydroponic cultivation systems. The results suggest that the metabolic response to drought stress is conserved in Arabidopsis and soybean plants.

Differential Impact of Acclimation and Acute Water Deprivation in the Expression of Key Transcription Factors in Soybean Roots

“…On the other hand, BR 16 cultivar is highly affected by water deficit showing the worse indicators (Oya et al 2004). These results show that Embrapa 48 and BR 16 are excellent models for the study of drought tolerance in soybean (Guimarães-Dias et al 2012;Ferreira Neto et al 2013;Marcolino-Gomes et al 2013). The responses at the molecular level to water deficit can be evaluated by distinct experimental approaches.…”

Isolation and characterization of a promoter responsive to salt, osmotic and dehydration stresses in soybean

“…GlymaGAL showed high expression levels, especially in the leaves of a drought-tolerant cultivar (EMBRAPA48) submitted to water deprivation (Guimarães-Dias et al , 2012; Guimaraes-Dias F, 2013, PhD Thesis, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro). At3g57520 ( AtSIP2 ), the putative Arabidopsis homolog of GlymaGAL , was originally annotated as raffinose synthase (Taji et al , 2002).…”

Implications of ethylene biosynthesis and signaling in soybean drought stress tolerance

“…The mechanism underlying environmental stress tolerance has been extensively studied in model plants in attempts to determine its impact on agriculture [ 40 ]. The metabolic pathways induced under drought in A. thaliana have been associated with abscisic acid (ABA)-dependent and ABA-independent pathways governing drought-inducible gene expression [ 41 , 42 ] as well as the existence of an interconnection between both signaling pathways [ 43 , 44 ]. Furthermore, advanced ABA and ethylene signaling research has revealed that under stress, both hormones act antagonistically among yield-impacting processes [ 45 ].…”