ICAR-National Institute for Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi, India.
Department of Bio and Nanotechnology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, India.
Genes Genomics. 2024 Jan;46(1):65-94. doi: 10.1007/s13258-023-01460-z. Epub 2023 Nov 20.
Despite plant's ability to adapt and withstand challenging environments, drought poses a severe threat to their growth and development. Although pigeon pea is already quite resistant to drought, the prolonged dehydration induced by the aberrant climate poses a serious threat to their survival and productivity.
Comparative physiological and transcriptome analyses of drought-tolerant (CO5) and drought-sensitive (CO1) pigeon pea genotypes subjected to drought stress were carried out in order to understand the molecular basis of drought tolerance in pigeon pea.
The transcriptomic analysis allowed us to examine how drought affects the gene expression of C. cajan. Using bioinformatics tools, the unigenes were de novo assembled, annotated, and functionally evaluated. Additionally, a homology-based sequence search against the droughtDB database was performed to identify the orthologs of the DEGs.
1102 potential drought-responsive genes were found to be differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between drought-tolerant and drought-sensitive genotypes. These included Abscisic acid insensitive 5 (ABI5), Nuclear transcription factor Y subunit A-7 (NF-YA7), WD40 repeat-containing protein 55 (WDR55), Anthocyanidin reductase (ANR) and Zinc-finger homeodomain protein 6 (ZF-HD6) and were highly expressed in the tolerant genotype. Further, GO analysis revealed that the most enriched classes belonged to biosynthetic and metabolic processes in the biological process category, binding and catalytic activity in the molecular function category and nucleus and protein-containing complex in the cellular component category. Results of KEGG pathway analysis revealed that the DEGs were significantly abundant in signalling pathways such as plant hormone signal transduction and MAPK signalling pathways. Consequently, in our investigation, we have identified and validated by qPCR a group of genes involved in signal reception and propagation, stress-specific TFs, and basal regulatory genes associated with drought response.
In conclusion, our comprehensive transcriptome dataset enabled the discovery of candidate genes connected to pathways involved in pigeon pea drought response. Our research uncovered a number of unidentified genes and transcription factors that could be used to understand and improve susceptibility to drought.
尽管植物具有适应和抵御挑战性环境的能力，但干旱对其生长和发育构成了严重威胁。尽管木豆已经具有相当的耐旱性，但异常气候引起的长时间脱水对其生存和生产力构成了严重威胁。
对耐旱（CO5）和干旱敏感（CO1）木豆基因型进行干旱胁迫下的比较生理和转录组分析，以了解木豆耐旱的分子基础。
转录组分析使我们能够研究干旱如何影响 C. cajan 的基因表达。使用生物信息学工具，对非冗余基因进行从头组装、注释和功能评估。此外，还对干旱数据库进行了基于同源性的序列搜索，以鉴定 DEGs 的同源物。
在耐旱和干旱敏感基因型之间，发现了 1102 个潜在的干旱响应基因差异表达基因（DEGs）。这些基因包括脱落酸不敏感 5（ABI5）、核转录因子 Y 亚基 A-7（NF-YA7）、WD40 重复蛋白 55（WDR55）、类黄酮还原酶（ANR）和锌指结构域 homeodomain 蛋白 6（ZF-HD6），在耐受基因型中高度表达。此外，GO 分析表明，在生物学过程分类中，最丰富的类群属于生物合成和代谢过程，在分子功能分类中属于结合和催化活性，在细胞成分分类中属于核和含蛋白质的复合物。KEGG 途径分析结果表明，DEGs 在植物激素信号转导和 MAPK 信号途径等信号通路中显著富集。因此，在我们的研究中，我们通过 qPCR 鉴定并验证了一组参与信号接收和传播、应激特异性 TF 和与干旱反应相关的基本调控基因的基因。
总之，我们的综合转录组数据集使我们能够发现与木豆干旱响应途径相关的候选基因。我们的研究发现了一些未被识别的基因和转录因子，可用于理解和提高对干旱的敏感性。
