Transcriptome Analysis of Populus euphratica under Salt Treatment and PeERF1 Gene Enhances Salt Tolerance in Transgenic Populus alba × Populus glandulosa

Abstract

Populus euphratica is mainly distributed in desert environments with dry and hot climate in summer and cold in winter. Compared with other poplars, P. euphratica is more resistant to salt stress. It is critical to investigate the transcriptome and molecular basis of salt tolerance in order to uncover stress-related genes. In this study, salt-tolerant treatment of P. euphratica resulted in an increase in osmo-regulatory substances and recovery of antioxidant enzymes. To improve the mining efficiency of candidate genes, the analysis combining both the transcriptome WGCNA and the former GWAS results was selected, and a range of key regulatory factors with salt resistance were found. The PeERF1 gene was highly connected in the turquoise modules with significant differences in salt stress traits, and the expression levels were significantly different in each treatment. For further functional verification of PeERF1, and we obtained stable overexpression and dominant suppression transgenic lines by transforming into Populus alba × Populusglandulosa. The growth and physiological characteristics of the PeERF1 overexpressed plants were better than that of the wild type under salt stress. Transcriptome analysis of leaves of transgenic lines and WT revealed that highly enriched GO terms in DEGs were associated with stress responses, including abiotic stimuli responses, chemical responses, and oxidative stress responses. The result is helpful for in-depth analysis of the salt tolerance mechanism of poplar. This work provides important genes for poplar breeding with salt tolerance.

Integrated metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis reveals the role of phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway in tomato roots during salt stress

“…Currently, various omics techniques have become an effective strategy to better understand the response mechanisms to environmental stresses such as salt stress ( Dai et al., 2022 ). In recent years, there have been many reports on the study of salt tolerance in plants through transcriptomic approaches ( Chen et al., 2022a ; Ge et al., 2022 ; Wang et al., 2022a ; Xu et al., 2022 ). Recently, metabolomic studies on salt tolerance in plants have reported that increased accumulation of metabolites and related pathways that mainly regulate the antioxidant defense system in different Indian mustard ( Brassica juncea ) varieties under different periods of salt stress give the high-yielding variety CS60 an advantage over CS245-2-80-7 and may be the main tolerance mechanism for its resistance to salt stress ( Singh et al., 2022 ).…”

Populus euphratica GRP2 Interacts with Target mRNAs to Negatively Regulate Salt Tolerance by Interfering with Photosynthesis, Na+, and ROS Homeostasis

“…The selection and identification of appropriate targets are essential for the genetic modification and molecular breeding of salt-resistant poplars [5]. The transcriptional regulation of salt-responsive genes in Populus euphratica (a salt-tolerant poplar species) is critical for these plants to mediate ionic and ROS homeostasis and for their adaptation to a salt environment [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Glycine-rich RNA-binding proteins (GRPs) interact with target mRNAs in the nucleus and regulate the processing and folding of the mRNAs [18][19][20].…”

PeCLH2 Gene Positively Regulate Salt Tolerance in Transgenic Populus alba × Populus glandulosa

“…In this study, a salt-tolerant chlorophyll gene, PeCLH2 , was identified through transcriptome analysis of P. euphratica in the early stage, and heterologous expression of the PeCLH2 gene was performed in P. alba × P. glandulosa [ 27 , 28 ]. Transcriptome analyses were performed on overexpression, RNA interference expression and wild-type plants.…”