Identification of water use efficiency related genes in ‘Garnem’ almond-peach rootstock using time-course transcriptome analysis

Abstract

Drought is one of the main abiotic stresses with far-reaching ecological and socioeconomic impacts, especially in perennial food crops such as Prunus. There is an urgent need to identify drought resilient rootstocks that can adapt to changes in water availability. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that PEG-induced water limitation stress will simulate drought conditions and drought-related genes, including transcription factors (TFs), will be differentially expressed in response to this stress. ‘Garnem’ genotype, an almond × peach hybrid [P. amygdalus Batsch, syn P. dulcis (Mill.) x P. persica (L.) Batsch] was exposed to PEG-6000 solution, and a time-course transcriptome analysis of drought-stressed roots was performed at 0, 2 and 24 h time points post-stress. Transcriptome analysis resulted in the identification of 12,693 unique differentially expressed contigs (DECs) at the 2 h time point, and 7,705 unique DECs at the 24 h time point after initiation of the drought treatment. Interestingly, three drought-induced genes, directly related to water use efficiency (WUE) namely, ERF023 TF; LRR receptor-like serine/threonine-kinase ERECTA; and NF-YB3 TF, were found induced under stress. The RNAseq results were validated with quantitative RT-PCR analysis of eighteen randomly selected differentially expressed contigs (DECs). Pathway analysis in the present study provides valuable information regarding metabolic events that occur during stress-induced signalling in ‘Garnem’ roots. This information is expected to be useful in understanding the potential mechanisms underlying drought stress responses and drought adaptation strategies in Prunus species.

Drought responsiveness in black pepper (Piper nigrum L.): Genes associated and development of a web‐genomic resource

“…The over‐representation of purine metabolism was also reported in the fruit transcriptome analysis of black pepper (Khew et al, 2020). This confirmed the role of purine metabolites in drought tolerance as reported in Arabidopsis (Watanabe et al, 2010) and almond‐peach rootstock (Bielsa et al, 2018).…”

Temporal Response to Drought Stress in Several Prunus Rootstocks and Wild Species

“…webbii seems to be the most resistant genotype studied here. Indeed, wild-relative species of almond seems to be more resistant to drought than other fruit tree species [25]. This wild-relative species has been utilized for straightforward rootstock development or to create interspecific hybrids, for introgression of resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses [25,32,57].…”

“…More recently, Bielsa et al [25] studied a collection of wild-relative species and cultivated hybrid rootstocks of Prunus to estimate their water use efficiency (WUE) and genetic variation in two drought-induction genes. Results showed that almond and peach wild-relative species had the highest WUE in comparison with hybrid genotypes, with almond wild-relative species being the best candidates to develop new cultivars with drought tolerance.…”

Neuropeptides and peptide hormones identified in codling moth, Cydia pomonella (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)

“…2000 platform-specific protocols. Detailed methods and analysis of the transcriptome sequencing were performed using previously standardized approaches (Bielsa, Hewitt, Reyes-Chin-Wo, Dhingra, & Rubio-Cabetas, 2018).…”