Transcriptomic reprogramming of barley seminal roots by combined water deficit and salt stress

Abstract

Background Water deficit and soil salinity substantially influence plant growth and productivity. When occurring individually, plants often exhibit reduced growth resulting in yield losses. The simultaneous occurrence of these stresses enhances their negative effects. Unraveling the molecular mechanisms of combined abiotic stress responses is essential to secure crop productivity under unfavorable environmental conditions. Results This study examines the effects of water deficit, salinity and a combination of both on growth and transcriptome plasticity of barley seminal roots by RNA-Seq. Exposure to water deficit and combined stress for more than 4 days significantly reduced total seminal root length. Transcriptome sequencing demonstrated that 60 to 80% of stress type-specific gene expression responses observed 6 h after treatment were also present after 24 h of stress application. However, after 24 h of stress application, hundreds of additional genes were stress-regulated compared to the short 6 h treatment. Combined salt and water deficit stress application results in a unique transcriptomic response that cannot be predicted from individual stress responses. Enrichment analyses of gene ontology terms revealed stress type-specific adjustments of gene expression. Further, global reprogramming mediated by transcription factors and consistent over-representation of basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors, heat shock factors (HSF) and ethylene response factors (ERF) was observed. Conclusion This study reveals the complex transcriptomic responses regulating the perception and signaling of multiple abiotic stresses in barley. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-019-5634-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Retracted Article: Investigation of yellow horn (Xanthoceras sorbifoliaBunge) transcriptome in response to different abiotic stresses: a comparative RNA-Seq study

“…It can be seen that the individual stress type and duration have important impacts on the number of DEGs, which correlated well with a previous study. 51,52 In addition, more DEGs can be identied for yellow horn in response to low temperature stress than to salt treatment and ABA treatment, implying yellow horn may have strong defensive systems in response to low temperature environment. Meanwhile, DEGs regulated by different abiotic stresses at different time points exhibited a conservation of 27% to 45% to large extent (Fig.…”

Molecular plant responses to combined abiotic stresses put a spotlight on unknown and abundant genes

“…Fortunately, several groups have started to overcome the technical issues that are encountered in designing the experimental set-up of combined stress factors under controlled conditions in the laboratory. Thus, in addition to two pioneering studies by Rizhsky et al (2002Rizhsky et al ( , 2004 on the effects of combined heat and drought stresses on gene expression profiles in tobacco and Arabidopsis, several recent genome-wide studies have made a shift to investigate plant responses to combined stresses (Rasmussen et al, 2013;Prasch and Sonnewald, 2013;Sewelam et al, 2014;Barah et al, 2016;Georgii et al, 2017;Shaar-Moshe et al, 2017;Osthoff et al, 2019). These studies suggested that plant molecular response to different individual stresses could not be used to predict the plant responses to combined stress treatments.…”

ENHANCED GRAVITROPISM 2encodes a STERILE ALPHA MOTIVE containing protein that controls root growth angle in barley and wheat

“…Then they were incubated in darkness at 30 °C over night to induce germination and only germinating seeds were used for further experiments. Growth in rhizoboxes for plant phenotyping and rotation experiments were conducted as described before (46). For phytohormone treatments, plants were grown on half-strength Hoagland solution (47), pH 5.8, supplemented with 0.8% phytagel on square Petri dishes, which were placed in a 45° angle.…”