Transcriptome Approach Reveals the Response Mechanism of Heimia myrtifolia (Lythraceae, Myrtales) to Drought Stress

Abstract

Drought is a major environmental condition that inhibits the development and cultivation of Heimia myrtifolia. The molecular processes of drought resistance in H. myrtifolia remain unknown, which has limited its application. In our study, transcriptome analyzes were compared across three treatment groups (CK, T1, and T2), to investigate the molecular mechanism of drought resistance. Plant leaves wilted and drooped as the duration of drought stress increased. The relative water content of the leaves declined dramatically, and relative electrolyte leakage rose progressively. Using an RNA-Seq approach, a total of 62,015 unigenes with an average length of 1730 bp were found, with 86.61% of them annotated to seven databases, and 14,272 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in drought stress. GO and KEGG enrichment analyzes of the DEGs revealed significantly enriched KEGG pathways, including photosynthesis, photosynthetic antenna proteins, plant hormone signal transduction, glutathione metabolism, and ascorbate and aldarate metabolism. Abscisic acid signal transduction was the most prevalent in the plant hormone signal transduction pathway, and other plant hormone signal transductions were also involved in the drought stress response. The transcription factors (including MYB, NAC, WRKY, and bHLH) and related differential genes on significantly enriched pathways all played important roles in the drought process, such as photosynthesis-related genes and antioxidant enzyme genes. In conclusion, this study will provide several genetic resources for further investigation of the molecular processes that will be beneficial to H. myrtifolia cultivation and breeding.

Water deficit response in nodulated soybean roots: a comprehensive transcriptome and translatome network analysis

“…Instead, fewer terms were exclusively found to be associated with the plants’ response to water deficit: “GSH metabolism” and “hormone signal transduction” (2 C protein phosphatases) (Fig. 7 A), which is in agreement with other studies [ 31 , 41 , 42 ]. These findings support what has already been suggested (when considering the number of DEGs) about the response of nodulated plants to water deficit being unique and more complex if compare to that of non-nodulated plants.…”

Water deficit response in nodulated soybean roots: a comprehensive transcriptome and translatome network analysis

“…As previously mentioned, terms related to “response to abiotic stress”, “protein folding”, “transmembrane transport”, “response to ABA”, “cellular amino acid catabolic process”, and “pigment catabolic process” were associated with the plant responses to nodulation + water deficit (Figure 6A). Instead, fewer terms were exclusively found to be associated with the plants’ response to water deficit: “GSH metabolism” and “hormone signal transduction” (2C protein phosphatases) (Figure 7A), which is in agreement with other studies (Van Ha et al, 2015; Lin et al, 2022; Ji et al, 2023). These findings support what has already been suggested (when considering the number of DEGs) about the response of nodulated plants to water deficit being unique and more complex if compare to that of non-nodulated plants.…”

“…Studies on how soybean plants respond to water-deficit stress have been mainly conducted on non-nodulated plants (Van Ha et al, 2015;Song et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2022), which in this work has been analyzed in comparison iii (NN+WR vs. NN+WW) (Figure 1C). However, all the major producer countries of soybean rely on the high symbiotic nitrogen fixation capacity of this plant (Maluk et al, 2023).…”

Co-expression network analysis reveals PbTGA4 and PbAPRR2 as core transcription factors of drought response in an important timber species Phoebe bournei

“…To reduce water loss under drought stress, plants reduce stomatal opening and transpiration rates, which restrict the entry of carbon dioxide into the leaves and inhibit photosynthesis to impair biomass accumulation ( Zhang et al., 2009 ; Li et al., 2018 ). At the same time, the reduced transpiration rate also leads to the obstruction of mineral transport in plants, which further aggravates physiological and metabolic disorders in plant cells, leading to the destruction of the cell membrane structure and impaired cell growth ( Lu et al., 2018 ; Lin et al., 2022 ). Cell elongation is most sensitive to drought, and a slight water deficit can cause a significant decrease in the growth rate, resulting in dwarf plants ( Marmagne et al., 2020 ).…”