Transcriptomic study of Suaeda salsa in response to salt and drought stress

Abstract

Drought and salinity are the main factors limiting agricultural production. Improving crop resistance to relieve land stress is a major challenge in agriculture. The salt-tolerant species Suaeda salsa is a typical indicator of saline soil. It has a strong drought tolerance and can be used as a model plant to study salt and drought tolerance in plants. In this study, transcriptome sequencing and bioinformatic analysis were performed to study gene expression changes in S. salsa under salt and drought stresses, and to screen out differentially expressed genes. The genetic changes were most abundant in cellular processes, metabolic processes, ion binding, signalling, post-translational modifications, protein conversion, and molecular chaperones, suggesting that the above methods may play a significant role in the response of S. salsa to external salt and drought stress. Enrichment analysis showed that carbohydrate metabolic processes, oxidoreductase activity, transmembrane transport, kinase activity, cellular protein modification processes, and ion-binding pathways are involved in the stress response of S. salsa.