Physiological and Transcriptomic Responses of Chinese Cabbage (Brassica rapa L. ssp. Pekinensis) to Salt Stress

Abstract

Salt stress is one of the major abiotic stresses that severely impact plant growth and development. In this study, we investigated the physiological and transcriptomic responses of Chinese cabbage “Qingmaye” to salt stress, a main variety in North China. Our results showed that the growth and photosynthesis of Chinese cabbage were significantly inhibited by salt treatment. However, as a glycophyte, Chinese cabbage could cope with high salinity; it could complete an entire life cycle at 100 mM NaCl. The high salt tolerance of Chinese cabbage was achieved by accumulating osmoprotectants and by maintaining higher activity of antioxidant enzymes. Transcriptomic responses were analyzed using the digital gene expression profiling (DGE) technique after 12 h of treatment by 200 mM NaCl. A total of 1235 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) including 740 up- and 495 down-regulated genes were identified. Functional annotation analyses showed that the DEGs were related to signal transduction, osmolyte synthesis, transcription factors, and antioxidant proteins. Taken together, this study contributes to our understanding of the mechanism of salt tolerance in Chinese cabbage and provides valuable information for further improvement of salt tolerance in Chinese cabbage breeding programs.

Transcriptional profiling reveals that a MYB transcription factor MsMYB4 contributes to the salinity stress response of alfalfa

“…The proline content of root tissue was determined following Qiu et al (2017)[ 35 ], while its malondialdehyde (MDA), soluble sugar and H 2 O 2 content, along with the activity of the enzymes peroxidase (POD), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), catalase (CAT) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX), were assessed using commercially available kits (Jiancheng, Nanjing, China) with triple replicates.…”

Research on the adaptive mechanism of photosynthetic apparatus under salt stress: New directions to increase crop yield in saline soils

“…Nevertheless, there are also different reports that the chlorophyll content of Lagerstroemia indica increased at first and then decreased as the stress intensified (G. Qiu, Yv, Hu, Chen, & Yao, ). Likewise, temporary elevation of chlorophyll was also observed in Brassica rapa and Chrysanthemum , which may be due to the positive effects of salinity resulting in leaf thickening (Pandey et al, ; N. Qiu et al, ).…”

Transcriptome Analysis in Chinese Cabbage (Brassica rapa ssp. pekinensis) Provides the Role of Glucosinolate Metabolism in Response to Drought Stress

“…In addition, high-throughput techniques have been widely used for understanding molecular mechanisms in Chinese cabbage in response to environmental stresses. For example, transcriptome analysis using digital gene expression profiling suggested that genes encoding transcription factors (TFs) including NAC, MYB, HSF (heat shock factor), WRKY, bHLH (basic helix-loop-helix), and ERF (ethylene-responsive factors), antioxidant proteins (superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, catalase, and glutathione S-transferase), and proteins involved in osmolyte synthesis contribute to salt tolerance [ 8 ]. Further, comparative transcriptome analysis of different varieties of Chinese cabbage has revealed common and variety-specific responsive transcripts, which can serve as a helpful resource to explore novel candidate genes for improving stress tolerance [ 9 ].…”