Vegetable Research Institute, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China; and Guangdong Key Laboratory for New Technology Research of Vegetables, Guangzhou 510640, China.
School of Life Sciences, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.
Funct Plant Biol. 2020 Jul;47(8):704-715. doi: 10.1071/FP19209.
Heat stress is a major environmental factor limiting plant productivity and quality in agriculture. Cucumber, one of the most important vegetables among cucurbitaceae, prefers to grow in a warm environment. Until now the molecular knowledge of heat stress in cucumber remained unclear. In this study, we performed transcriptome analysis using two diverse genetic cucumber cultivars, L-9 and A-16 grown under normal and heat stress. L-9 displayed heat-tolerance phenotype with higher superoxide dismutase enzyme (SOD) enzyme activity and lower malondialdehyde (MDA) content than A-16 under heat stress. RNA-sequencing revealed that a total of 963 and 2778 genes are differentially expressed between L-9 and A-16 under normal and heat stress respectively. In addition, we found that differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with plant hormones signally pathway, transcription factors, and secondary metabolites showed significantly change in expression level after heat stress, which were confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR assay. Our results not only explored several crucial genes involved in cucumber heat resistance, but also provide a new insight into studying heat stress.
热应激是限制农业中植物生产力和品质的主要环境因素。黄瓜是葫芦科中最重要的蔬菜之一，喜欢在温暖的环境中生长。到目前为止，黄瓜对热应激的分子知识还不清楚。在这项研究中，我们使用两个不同遗传的黄瓜品种 L-9 和 A-16 在正常和热应激条件下进行了转录组分析。L-9 在热应激下表现出耐热表型，超氧化物歧化酶（SOD）酶活性较高，丙二醛（MDA）含量较低。RNA-seq 显示，L-9 和 A-16 在正常和热应激下分别有 963 和 2778 个基因差异表达。此外，我们发现与植物激素信号通路、转录因子和次生代谢物相关的差异表达基因（DEGs）在热应激后表达水平发生了显著变化，这一点通过定量实时 PCR 检测得到了证实。我们的研究结果不仅探索了几个参与黄瓜耐热性的关键基因，也为研究热应激提供了新的视角。
