Small secreted peptides encoded on the wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genome and their potential roles in stress responses

Abstract

Small secreted peptides (SSPs) are important signals for cell-to-cell communication in plant, involved in a variety of growth and developmental processes, as well as responses to stresses. While a large number of SSPs have been identified and characterized in various plant species, little is known about SSPs in wheat, one of the most important cereal crops. In this study, 4,981 putative SSPs were identified on the wheat genome, among which 1,790 TaSSPs were grouped into 38 known SSP families. The result also suggested that a large number of the putaitive wheat SSPs, Cys-rich peptides in particular, remained to be characterized. Several TaSSP genes were found to encode multiple SSP domains, including CLE, HEVEIN and HAIRPININ domains, and two potentially novel TaSSP family DYY and CRP8CI were identified manually among unpredicted TaSSPs. Analysis on the transcriptomic data showed that a great proportion of TaSSPs were expressed in response to abiotic stresses. Exogenous application of the TaCEPID peptide encoded by TraesCS1D02G130700 enhanced the tolerance of wheat plants to drought and salinity, suggesting porential roles of SSPs in regulating stress responses in wheat.

Small secreted peptides (SSPs) in tomato and their potential roles in drought stress response

“…Previous studies have showed that a large number of CEP genes can be induced by abiotic stresses, and some CEPs are involved in ABA signaling and plant stress responses in Arabidopsis , Setaria and Triticum (Smith et al 2020 ; Zhang et al 2021 ; Tian et al 2022 ; Taleski et al 2023 ). In this study, a total of 21 SlCEP genes (4 unannotated) were identified.…”

“…3 A). SSP families such as CLE, CEP, RALF and PIP, which have been reported to be involved in abiotic stress (Atkinson et al 2013 ; Takahashi et al 2018 ; Tian et al 2022 ; Zhou et al 2022 ), showed low expression levels. In the online resource for tomato transcriptome analysis (GSE151277, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/ ), the expression levels of tomato genes were examined 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 days after drought treatments.…”

“…Wang et al used a combined transcriptomics- and proteomics-based screenings and isolated 236 SSP candidates involved in rice immunity (Wang et al 2020 ). Tian et al identified 4,981 putative wheat SSPs with protein length less than 250 aa (Tian et al 2022 ). Certain SSP families such as CLEs (Carbonnel et al 2022 ) and CEPs (Liu et al 2022 ) have been characterized in more details for their functions in plant development and stress response.…”

Characterization of the CLE Family in Three Nicotiana Species and Potential Roles of CLE Peptides in Osmotic and Salt Stress Responses

“…Several plant peptide signals have been characterized as being involved in stress responses [7,13,60]. In addition to CLE members CLE25, CLE9, and CLE14, which function as regulators of stress tolerance in Arabidopsis [37,40,41], members in the CEP family [61], RALFL family [62], Pep family [63], CAPE family [64], PIP family [65], and SCREW family [66] have been reported to be involved in plants' responses to abiotic stresses.…”

“…Plant signaling peptide was first reported in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) in 1991 when systemin was identified as a hormonal peptide [2]. A large number of signaling peptides (or peptide hormones) from various plant species have been identified and characterized since then [3][4][5][6][7]. It is generally believed that plant peptide hormones are a class of mature peptide molecules with a length of fewer than 100 amino acids and special functions, and their concentrations are usually very low in plant cells [8,9].…”