Department of Plant Physiology, Genetics and Biotechnology, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Oczapowskiego Street 1A/103A, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 May 8;24(9):8429. doi: 10.3390/ijms24098429.
The response of wheat ( L.) plants to the soil drought at the metabolome level is still not fully explained. In addition, research focuses mainly on single periods of drought, and there is still a lack of data on the response of plants to short-term cyclical periods of drought. The key to this research was to find out whether wheat shoots are able to resume metabolism after the stress subsides and if the reaction to subsequent stress is the same. Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is one of the most valuable and fast methods to discover changes in the primary metabolism of plants. The targeted GC-MS analyses of whole shoots of wheat plants exposed (at the juvenile stage of development) to short-term (five days) mild soil drought/rewatering cycles (until the start of shoot wilting) enabled us to identify 32 polar metabolites. The obtained results revealed an accumulation of sugars (sucrose, fructose, glucose, and 1-kestose), proline, and malic acid. During five days of recovery, shoots regained full turgor and continued to grow, and the levels of accumulated metabolites decreased. Similar changes in metabolic profiles were found during the second drought/rewatering cycle. However, the concentrations of glucose, proline, and malic acid were higher after the second drought than after the first one. Additionally, the concentration of total polar metabolites after each plant rewatering was elevated compared to control samples. Although our results confirm the participation of proline in wheat responses to drought, they also highlight the responsiveness of soluble carbohydrate metabolism to stress/recovery.
小麦(L.)植株对土壤干旱在代谢组水平上的响应仍未得到充分解释。此外,研究主要集中在单一的干旱时期,而关于植物对短期周期性干旱的响应的数据仍然缺乏。本研究的关键是要确定小麦幼苗在胁迫缓解后是否能够恢复代谢,以及对随后的胁迫的反应是否相同。气相色谱-质谱联用(GC-MS)是发现植物初级代谢物变化最有价值和最快的方法之一。对暴露于短期(五天)轻度土壤干旱/复水循环(直到开始出现幼苗萎蔫)的幼年期小麦植株的全株进行靶向 GC-MS 分析,使我们能够鉴定出 32 种极性代谢物。所得结果表明糖(蔗糖、果糖、葡萄糖和 1-蔗果三糖)、脯氨酸和苹果酸的积累。在五天的恢复期内,幼苗恢复了完全的膨压并继续生长,积累的代谢物水平降低。在第二个干旱/复水循环中发现了类似的代谢谱变化。然而,第二次干旱后葡萄糖、脯氨酸和苹果酸的浓度高于第一次干旱后。此外,与对照样品相比,每次植物复水后总极性代谢物的浓度升高。尽管我们的结果证实了脯氨酸参与了小麦对干旱的响应,但它们也强调了可溶性碳水化合物代谢对胁迫/恢复的响应性。