Comparative Transcriptome and Proteome Analysis of Salt-Tolerant and Salt-Sensitive Sweet Potato and Overexpression of IbNAC7 Confers Salt Tolerance in Arabidopsis

Abstract

Salt stress is one of the major devastating factors affecting the growth and yield of almost all crops, including the crucial staple food crop sweet potato. To understand their molecular responses to salt stress, comparative transcriptome and proteome analysis of salt-tolerant cultivar Xushu 22 and salt-sensitive cultivar Xushu 32 were investigated. The results showed the two genotypes had distinct differences at the transcription level and translation level even without salt stress, while inconsistent expression between the transcriptome and proteome data was observed. A total of 16,396 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 727 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were identified. Wherein, 1,764 DEGs and 93 DEPs were specifically expressed in the tolerant genotype. Furthermore, the results revealed that the significantly upregulated genes were mainly related to the regulation of ion accumulation, stress signaling, transcriptional regulation, redox reactions, plant hormone signal transduction, and secondary metabolite accumulation, which may be involved in the response of sweet potato to salt stress and/or may determine the salt tolerance difference between the two genotypes. In addition, 1,618 differentially expressed regulatory genes were identified, including bZIP, bHLH, ERF, MYB, NAC, and WRKY. Strikingly, transgenic Arabidopsis overexpressing IbNAC7 displayed enhanced salt tolerance compared to WT plants, and higher catalase (CAT) activity, chlorophyll and proline contents, and lower malondialdehyde (MDA) content and reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation were detected in transgenic plants compared with that of WT under salt stress. Furthermore, RNA-seq and qRT-PCR analysis displayed that the expression of many stress-related genes was upregulated in transgenic plants. Collectively, these findings provide revealing insights into sweet potato molecular response to salt stress and underlie the complex salt tolerance mechanisms between genotypes, and IbNAC7 was shown as a promising candidate gene to enhance salt tolerance of sweet potato.

Transcriptome and proteome analysis of walnut (Juglans regia L.) fruit in response to infection by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides

“…Meanwhile, the correlation analysis of the transcriptome and proteome showed that the correlation between gene and protein expression was very weak in the late stage. Similar to multiple other studies [ 36 , 37 ], the results showed that not all mRNA: protein ratios reflected the corresponding changes in transcription and protein levels [ 38 ], which was due to the possible occurrence of posttranscriptional regulation during the C. gloeosporioides response in the walnut fruit bracts.…”

Combined Transcriptome and Proteome Analysis to Elucidate Salt Tolerance Strategies of the Halophyte Panicum antidotale Retz

“…Therefore, the tremendous increase in the number of multi-omics-based studies in the last couple of years is no surprise. However, following the conventional pattern of information collection, these studies are set for model plants and salt-sensitive crops ( Peng et al, 2018 ; Arefian et al, 2019 ; Meng et al, 2020 ). Analysis of the gene expression of halophytes with a coordinated omics approach, on the other hand, has more potential to dissect the master regulators of salt stress physiology and biochemistry.…”

Genome-Wide Identification and Analysis of NAC Transcription Factor Family in Two Diploid Wild Relatives of Cultivated Sweet Potato Uncovers Potential NAC Genes Related to Drought Tolerance

“…To date, NAC TFs have been identified in numerous plant species, such as A. thaliana ( Ooka et al, 2003 ; Li et al, 2021 ), rice ( Oryza sativa ) ( Nuruzzaman et al, 2010 ), tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) ( Li et al, 2018 ), tomato ( Jin et al, 2020 ), broomcorn millet ( Panicum miliaceum ) ( Shan et al, 2020 ), and white pear ( Pyrus bretschneideri ) ( Gong et al, 2019 ). Recently, the roles of IbNAC7 in salt tolerance ( Meng et al, 2020 ) and IbNAC1 against wounding stress ( Chen et al, 2016a ; Chen et al, 2016b ) have been documented while 12 novel IbNAC genes in response to salt stress have been cloned ( Meng et al, 2018 ). Despite these findings, detailed information about the NAC gene family at the genome-wide level has not been available, until now.…”