Tang Jiale, Xu Hai, Yuan Ping, He Kejia, Chen Mengjie, Bu Fanwen, Wang Rencai, Luo Feixiong
College of Horticulture, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, 410128, China.
Horticulture Research Institute, Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changsha, 410125, China.
BMC Plant Biol. 2025 Jul 2;25(1):802. doi: 10.1186/s12870-025-06890-3.
High temperature is one of the major natural problems resulting in delayed growth, development and decreased agricultural productivity. Kiwifruit is highly sensitive to high temperature at its entire development stage. In order to better understand the kiwifruit physiological and molecular mechanism, we conducted out a physiological parameters and transcriptome analysis under high temperature conditions using the leaf tissues of two species viz., thermosensitive Actinidia chinensis cv. Hongyang (Ac) and thermotolerant type Actinidia eriantha cv. Huate (Ae).
The leaves from Ae plants were characterized as the underside leaf was covered by long and density intertwining trichome, thicker leaf tissues, low stomatal density when comparing with those from the Ac plants. When exposure to high temperature, the Ae plants maintained stabler photosynthesis and scavenged excess ROS by accumulating lower HO capacity and increasing antioxidant capacity, significantly induced expression of antioxidant-related genes in comparison with the Ac plants. Moreover, global transcriptome profiling demonstrated that induced expression of genes related to endoplasmic reticulum (including heat shock protein), Ca signaling pathway, glutathione metabolism, which might contribute to improved thermotolerance in Ae plants.
Above findings suggest that the significantly enhanced thermotolerance of Ae plants might attribute to leaf morphologic variation, stabled photosynthetic and improved antioxidant capacities, significantly induced higher differentially expressed genes (DEGs), such as HSP genes. Taken together, our results provide a dependable and useful information on the heat response in kiwifruit plants.
高温是导致植物生长发育延迟和农业生产力下降的主要自然问题之一。猕猴桃在其整个发育阶段对高温高度敏感。为了更好地了解猕猴桃的生理和分子机制，我们利用两个品种的叶片组织，即热敏性中华猕猴桃品种‘红阳’（Ac）和耐热性毛花猕猴桃品种‘华特’（Ae），在高温条件下进行了生理参数和转录组分析。
与Ac植株相比，Ae植株的叶片特征为叶背面覆盖着长而密集交织的毛状体，叶片组织更厚，气孔密度更低。在高温胁迫下，Ae植株通过积累较低的H₂O₂含量和提高抗氧化能力来维持更稳定的光合作用并清除过量的活性氧，与Ac植株相比，其抗氧化相关基因的表达显著上调。此外，全转录组分析表明，内质网相关基因（包括热休克蛋白）、钙信号通路、谷胱甘肽代谢相关基因的诱导表达可能有助于提高Ae植株的耐热性。
上述结果表明，Ae植株耐热性显著增强可能归因于叶片形态变异、稳定的光合作用和提高的抗氧化能力，以及显著诱导的较高差异表达基因（DEGs），如热休克蛋白基因。综上所述，我们的研究结果为猕猴桃植株的热响应提供了可靠且有用的信息。
