Expression analysis of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) during salinity stress

Abstract

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is a salt-tolerant crop species with considerable economic importance in salinity-affected arid and semiarid regions of the world. In this work, barley cultivar Morex was used for transcriptional profiling during salinity stress using a microarray containing approximately 22,750 probe sets. The experiment was designed to target the early responses of genes to a salinity stress at seedling stage. We found a comparable number of probe sets up-regulated and down-regulated in response to salinity. The differentially expressed genes were broadly characterized using gene ontology and through expression-based hierarchical clustering to identify interesting features in the data. A prominent feature of the response to salinity was the induction of genes involved in jasmonic acid biosynthesis and genes known to respond to jasmonic acid treatment. A large number of abiotic stress (heat, drought, and low temperature) related genes were also found to be responsive to salinity stress. Our results also indicate osmoprotection to be an early response of barley under salinity stress. Additionally, we compared the results of our studies with two other reports characterizing gene expression of barley under salinity stress and found very few genes in common.

The integration of activity in saline environments: problems and perspectives

“…The use of microarrays and, more recently, RNAseq techniques in such studies has great potential for both individual gene-and systems-level understanding, although the massive amount of data which results has the potential to make specific interpretations difficult (e.g. Seki et al 2002;Chao et al 2005;Walia et al 2006). The greatest strength of the study by Ruffel et al (2011) was the use to which they were able to put transcriptomic analysis using microarrays.…”

Plant Desiccation Tolerance and its Regulation in the Foliage of Resurrection “Flowering-Plant” Species

“…In barley, JA-inducible genes were also upregulated by salinity, suggesting action of endogenous JA formed during salt-stress [78]. Pre-treatment with JA lessened salt-induced inhibition of photosynthesis in barley plants [78].…”

“…Genes encoding enzymes involved in jasmonate (JA)-biosynthesis were upregulated in droughted non-resurrection plants in the Solanaceae and in salt-stressed barley plants [72,78]. In barley, JA-inducible genes were also upregulated by salinity, suggesting action of endogenous JA formed during salt-stress [78].…”

Comprehensive Sequence Analysis of 24,783 Barley Full-Length cDNAs Derived from 12 Clone Libraries

“…uk/microarray-as/ae/). Using several platforms for transcript profiling, researchers have described the responses of barley to conditions such as high salinity (Ueda et al, 2006;Walia et al, 2006), low temperature or freezing (Koo et al, 2008), and drought (Talamè et al, 2007;Tommasini et al, 2008) as well as during various stages, such as grain development (Sreenivasulu et al, 2006), germination (Sreenivasulu et al, 2008b), and growth (Druka et al, 2006), by means of coordinated upor down-regulation of sets of genes.…”