State Forestry and Grassland Administration Key Laboratory of Silviculture in downstream areas of the Yellow River, College of Forestry, Shandong Agriculture University, Taian, 271018, Shandong, China.
State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, College of Forestry and Biotechnology, Zhejiang A&F University, Lin'an, Hangzhou, 311300, China.
BMC Plant Biol. 2019 Aug 20;19(1):367. doi: 10.1186/s12870-019-1952-2.
Adaptation to abiotic stresses is crucial for the survival of perennial plants in a natural environment. However, very little is known about the underlying mechanisms. Here, we adopted a liquid culture system to investigate plant adaptation to repeated salt stress in Populus trees.
We first evaluated phenotypic responses and found that plants exhibit better stress tolerance after pre-treatment of salt stress. Time-course RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) was then performed to profile changes in gene expression over 12 h of salt treatments. Analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) indicated that significant transcriptional reprogramming and adaptation to repeated salt treatment occurred. Clustering analysis identified two modules of co-expressed genes that were potentially critical for repeated salt stress adaptation, and one key module for salt stress response in general. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis identified pathways including hormone signaling, cell wall biosynthesis and modification, negative regulation of growth, and epigenetic regulation to be highly enriched in these gene modules.
This study illustrates phenotypic and transcriptional adaptation of Populus trees to salt stress, revealing novel gene modules which are potentially critical for responding and adapting to salt stress.
适应非生物胁迫对于多年生植物在自然环境中的生存至关重要。然而，关于其潜在机制的了解甚少。在这里，我们采用液体培养系统来研究杨树适应反复盐胁迫的机制。
我们首先评估了表型响应，发现植物在经过盐胁迫预处理后表现出更好的胁迫耐受性。然后进行了为期 12 小时的盐处理的时间过程 RNA 测序（RNA-seq），以分析基因表达的变化。差异表达基因（DEGs）分析表明，发生了显著的转录重编程和对反复盐处理的适应。聚类分析鉴定了两个共表达基因模块，它们可能对反复盐胁迫适应至关重要，一个模块对盐胁迫反应普遍重要。基因本体论（GO）富集分析鉴定了包括激素信号转导、细胞壁生物合成和修饰、生长的负调控以及表观遗传调控在内的途径在这些基因模块中高度富集。
本研究说明了杨树对盐胁迫的表型和转录适应，揭示了潜在的对响应和适应盐胁迫至关重要的新基因模块。
