Project description:Jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) is an economically and agriculturally significant fruit crop and is widely cultivated throughout the world. Heat stress has recently become one of the major abiotic stresses limiting plant growth and productivity. However, there are few studies on the transcriptome profiling of jujube subjected to heat stress. In this study, we analyzed the physiological and transcriptomic changes of heat-resistant jujube cultivar ‘HR’ and heat-sensitive cultivar ‘HS’ caused by high temperature stress. We statistically determined 984, 1468, 1727 and 2098 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between ‘HR’ and ‘HS’ after 0, 1, 3, 5 d of heat stress, respectively. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis indicated that Aa great deal of heat-responsive genes were identified in these DEGs by Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis. It suggests the distinct molecular mechanism of jujube response to heat stress. Furthermore, we validated the expression profiles of 12 candidates using qRT-PCR to further confirm the accuracy of the RNA-seq data. These results will advance our knowledge of the genes involved in the complex regulatory networks of heat stress and provide genetic resources for further improving the heat tolerance in jujube.
