Transcriptome analysis reveals candidate genes related to phosphorus starvation tolerance in sorghum

Abstract

Background Phosphorus (P) deficiency in soil is a worldwide issue and a major constraint on the production of sorghum, which is an important staple food, forage and energy crop. The depletion of P reserves and the increasing price of P fertilizer make fertilizer application impractical, especially in developing countries. Therefore, identifying sorghum accessions with low-P tolerance and understanding the underlying molecular basis for this tolerance will facilitate the breeding of P-efficient plants, thereby resolving the P crisis in sorghum farming. However, knowledge in these areas is very limited. Results The 29 sorghum accessions used in this study demonstrated great variability in their tolerance to low-P stress. The internal P content in the shoot was correlated with P tolerance. A low-P-tolerant accession and a low-P-sensitive accession were chosen for RNA-seq analysis to identify potential underlying molecular mechanisms. A total of 2089 candidate genes related to P starvation tolerance were revealed and found to be enriched in 11 pathways. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analyses showed that the candidate genes were associated with oxidoreductase activity. In addition, further study showed that malate affected the length of the primary root and the number of tips in sorghum suffering from low-P stress. Conclusions Our results show that acquisition of P from soil contributes to low-P tolerance in different sorghum accessions; however, the underlying molecular mechanism is complicated. Plant hormone (including auxin, ethylene, jasmonic acid, salicylic acid and abscisic acid) signal transduction related genes and many transcriptional factors were found to be involved in low-P tolerance in sorghum. The identified accessions will be useful for breeding new sorghum varieties with enhanced P starvation tolerance. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12870-019-1914-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Transcriptome Changes Induced by Different Potassium Levels in Banana Roots

“…The 17 DEGs included nine Cytochrome P450 family members, four oxidoreductase family members, two 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate oxidase family members, one Omega-6 fatty acid desaturase, and one S-norcoclaurine synthase (Table S15). The oxidoreductase activity enrichment also had reported in other plants treated by low nutrient stresses, such as in low potassium treated pear fruit [34], in low nitrogen treated wheat [35], in low phosphorus treated sorghum [36]. The networks of the DEGs in profile 1 were conducted, and the results revealed that CYP51, a member of cytochrome P450 family was the hub gene with the highest node degree 8 (Figure 6B, Tables S5 and S6).…”

Interaction between Humic Substances and Plant Hormones for Phosphorous Acquisition

“…Part of this optimization requires a better understanding of plant physiological adaptation mechanisms under P deficiency, in interaction with both soil microorganisms and the soil itself [8]. Phytohormone signaling of P starvation is one of the main pathways which modulates plant response…”

Transcriptome and ionome analysis of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium interactions in sorghum seedlings

“…Research about mineral nutrition has mainly been focused on plant responses to single nutrient deficiency. Previous studies showed that in many plants species, such as rice, Arabidopsis, maize, wheat, and sorghum, plants generate adaptive responses at morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels under NPK deficiency conditions (Wang et al 2000;Wu et al 2003;Armengaud et al 2004;Scheible et al 2004;Calderon-Vazquez et al 2011;Ma et al 2012;Curci et al 2017;Sun et al 2018;Sheflin et al 2019;Zhang et al 2019). Nitrogen deficiency results in chlorosis, growth retardation and elongated roots.…”

“…Inorganic phosphate (Pi) deficiency leads to reduced plant growth, promoted root elongation in rice and sorghum, and suppressed primary root growth in Arabidopsis, anthocyanin accumulation, phosphatase secretion, and increased lipid-related metabolism, which enhance Pi acquisition, utilization, and substitution. Pi deficiency also results in higher accumulation of some metal elements, such as aluminum (Al), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn) and calcium (Ca), as well as a decline in N and K (Misson et al 2005;Li et al 2010;Gemenet et al 2016;Zhang et al 2019). Potassium plays important role in plant physiological processes, such as in stomata aperture modulation, enzyme activation, osmoregulation, and protein and starch synthesis (Ashley et al 2006;Cochrane and Cochrane 2009).…”

“…Sorghum is usually planted with little fertilizer and few inputs by a group of small-holder farmers in many countries (http://www.fao.org/docrep/T0818E). Only a few transcriptomic and ionomic studies have focused on the response to N, P or K deficiency in sorghum to date (Gelli et al 2014;Zhang et al 2019), which limits our understanding of sorghum tolerance to infertile land. Here, we compared the differences in growth performance and ionome and transcriptome profiles between single-and triple-nutrient NPK deficiency in sorghum seedlings.…”