Unraveling the Saline-Alkali-Tolerance Mystery of <i>Leymus chinensis</i> Nongjing-4: Insights from Integrated Transcriptome and Metabolome Analysis.

ABSTRACT: Soil salinization-alkalization is a critical abiotic constraint on global agriculture, threatening agroecosystem sustainability. Leymus chinensis, a high-quality perennial forage with strong stress resilience, is an ideal model for studying saline-alkali tolerance in graminaceous crops. We integrated physiological, transcriptomic, and metabolomic profiling to dissect its responses under moderate vs. severe carbonate stress, mimicking natural saline-alkali soils rather than single salt stress treatments. Multi-omics analysis revealed drastic reprogramming of energy metabolism, carbohydrate homeostasis, water transport, and secondary metabolism. Our novel finding reveals that L. chinensis uses stress-severity-dependent mechanisms, with flavonoid biosynthesis as a central "regul

SUBMITTER: Wang J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12736582 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature