Project description:Cuticular waxes coating leaf surfaces can help tolerate drought events by reducing non-stomatal water loss. Despite their role in drought tolerance, little is known about the cuticular wax responses of Canadian bread wheat varieties. To fill in this gap, RNAseq was performed on the flag leaf of four modern varieties to identify potential markers that could be used for selection of higher accumulation of cuticular waxes. This analysis revealed that the W1 locus is a good candidate for higher accumulation of β-diketones.
Project description:Brown planthopper (BPH) is the most notorious insect pest to rice. Drought is the most commonly occurring global adversity. BPH infestation caused adaxially-rolled leaves and shrunk bulliform cells similar to drought. The bulliform-cell characteristic gene, ACL1, negatively regulated BPH resistance and drought tolerance, with decreased cuticular wax in ACL1-D, which resulted in quicker water losing. ACL1 was specifically expressed in epidermis. TurboID system and various biochemical assays revealed that ACL1 interacted with the epidermal-characteristic HD-Zip IV ROCs. ROC4 and ROC5 positively regulated BPH resistance and drought tolerance through modulating cuticular wax and bulliform cells respectively. Overexpression of ROC4 and ROC5 both rescued ACL1-D in various related phenotypes simultaneously. Moreover, ACL1 competed with ROC4 and ROC5 in homo-dimerization and hetero-dimerization. Altogether, we illustrated that ACL1-ROCs complex synergistically mediate drought tolerance and BPH resistance through regulating cuticular wax and bulliform cells in rice, a new mechanism which might facilitate BPH resistance breeding.
Project description:Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) is a staple food crucial for global caloric intake and food security. The current climate emergency demands the development of sustainable agricultural practices, particularly in the context of drought-induced yield reductions in bread wheat. Microalgae-based biostimulants have emerged as promising tools to enhance crop tolerance to drought stress while concurrently mitigating atmospheric CO2 accumulation. This study characterizes the transcriptomic responses to the foliar application of the microalgae-based biostimulant LRMTM in drought-stressed and fully irrigated wheat plants unveiling its mode of action. Drought stress at the tillering stage significantly altered gene expression activating key pathways related to phosphate starvation response (PSR), inositol phosphate signaling, and tocopherol biosynthesis. The application of the microalgae-based biostimulant LRMTM in drought-stressed plants further enhanced the expression of drought-responsive genes, particularly those involved in PSR and carbon fixation. Specific responses to LRMTM treatment in drought-stressed plants were also found related to abscisic acid (ABA) signaling activating genes involved in stomata closure, which plays a critical role in drought tolerance. In fully irrigated plants, LRMTM treatment was also beneficial modulating circadian rhythms, shade avoidance and attenuating stress responses. Phenotypic analysis showed that LRMTM-treated plants exhibited enhanced drought tolerance, increased height and spike length even under fully irrigated conditions. These results indicate that the microalgae-based biostimulant LRMTM not only enhances wheat response to drought but also promotes growth and productivity in both stressed and non-stressed conditions which could contribute to the development of sustainable agriculture in the face of the current climate challenges.
Project description:Background Maintaining global food security in the context of climate changes is an important challenge in the next century. Improving abiotic stress tolerance of major crops, like wheat, can contribute to this goal. Therefore, new genes improving tolerance to abiotic stresses, like drought, are needed to support breeding programs aimed at producing more adapted cultivars. Recently, we screened five wheat Zinc Finger Proteins (TaZFPs) and identified TaZFP13D as a new gene improving water-stress tolerance. However, a more detailed characterization of this gene is required to better evaluate its potential in drought tolerance and to decipher the underlying molecular basis. Results We used the Barley Stripe Mosaic Virus to up- or down-regulate TaZFP13D expression in wheat. Overexpression of TaZFP13D under well-watered conditions enhances growth as indicated by improved biomass. Exposing plants to a severe drought stress revealed that TaZFP13D strongly increases survival rate and stress recovery. In addition, TaZFP13D reduces drought-induced oxidative damages, at least in part by improving key antioxidant enzymes activity. Conversely, down-regulation of TaZFP13D decreases drought tolerance and protection against drought-induced oxidative damages. RNA-seq-based transcriptome analysis showed that many genes regulated by TaZFP13D were previously shown to improve drought tolerance, while many others are related to the photosynthetic electron transfer chain and are proposed to improve photosynthesis efficiency and chloroplast protection against ROS damages. Conclusion This study highlights the important role of TaZFP13D in wheat drought tolerance, contributes to unravel the complex regulation governed by TaZFPs, and provides a useful marker to select more drought tolerant wheat cultivars.
Project description:Abstract Background Drought stress is one of the major factors limiting wheat production globally. Improving drought tolerance is important for agriculture sustainability. Although various morphological, physiological and biochemical responses associated with drought tolerance have been documented, the molecular mechanisms and regulatory genes that are needed to improve drought tolerance in crops require further investigation. We have used a novel 4-component version (for overexpression) and a 3-component version (for underexpression) of a barley stripe mosaic virus-based (BSMV) system for functional characterization of the C2H2-type zinc finger protein TaZFP1B in wheat. These expression systems avoid the need to produce transgenic plant lines and greatly speed up functional gene characterization. Results We show that overexpression of TaZFP1B stimulates plant growth and up-regulates different oxidative stress-responsive genes under well-watered conditions. Plants that overexpress TaZFP1B are more drought tolerant at critical periods of the plant’s life cycle. Furthermore, RNA-Seq analysis revealed that plants overexpressing TaZFP1B reprogram their transcriptome, resulting in physiological and physical modifications that help wheat to grow and survive under drought stress. In contrast, plants transformed to underexpress TaZFP1B are significantly less tolerant to drought and growth is negatively affected. Conclusions This study clearly shows that the two versions of the BSMV system can be used for fast and efficient functional characterization of genes in crops. The extent of transcriptome reprogramming in plants that overexpress TaZFP1B indicates that the encoded transcription factor is a key regulator of drought tolerance in wheat.
Project description:A complex regulatory network is the mechanism of wheat roots responding to drought stress at low and adequate phosphorus levels. The transcription levels of genes encoding silicon transporters, phosphate transporters, sucrose synthesis, etc., are mostly up-regulated in Xindong20. The genes encoding the electron transport chain and the respiratory chain are mostly down-regulated in Xindong23. These results suggest that wheat roots should maintain the structural integrity of the cells and reduce the energy metabolism during the coupled stress of drought and low phosphorus, which will help to improve the drought tolerance of wheat. The objective of the present data was to increase the information about the effect of drought on the transcriptomes of wheat root cultured by two phosphorus levels.
Project description:More than four billion people rely on bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) as a major constituent of their diet. However, the changing climate threatens wheat production, with periods of intense drought stress already causing widespread wheat yield losses. Much of the research into the wheat drought response has centred on the response to drought events later in development, during anthesis or grain filling. But as the timing of periods of drought stress become increasingly unpredictable, a more complete understanding of the response to drought during early development is also needed. Here, we utilized the YoGI landrace panel to identify the key genes regulating processes such as, stomatal opening, stomatal closing, stomatal morphogenesis and stress hormone signalling related to drought stress.
Project description:The aim of the study was to identify candidate genes responsible for drought tolerance trait between a pair of wheat varieties ( WL711 and C306) and correspondng progeny bulks (10 drought susceptible RILs and 10 drought tolerant RILs) by combining QTLs analysis with expression analysis. Microarray analysis of RNA extracted from the flag leaves showed large number of differentially expressed genes. The number of differentially expressed genes was reduced to 37 on the basis of their occurance in a major QTL region (responcible for drought tolerance) detected in RIL population derived from WL711 and C306. RNA from the reproductive stage flag leaf of wheat in irrigated and drought condition of drought susceptible parent WL711, drought tolerant parent C306 and drought susceptible and drought tolerant RIL bulks were analysed in three different biological replications (A , B and C) making total twenty four samples
Project description:We report the application of high-throughput RNA sequencing for comparing the expression levels of the coding and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in leaf samples from a glossy mutant nwgl and its wild-type (WT) in cabbage. By obtaining over 163.35 Gb cleaned data generated from six libraries (on average, more than 26.48 Gb clean data for each sample replicate), we identified 1247 differential expressed genes (DEGs) and 148 differential expressed lncRNAs in nwgl leaves relative to WT. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis revealed that the DEGs and cis-regulated target genes for differential expressed lncRNAs were significantly enriched in wax and lipid biosynthetic and/or metabolic processes. Our results provide the novel foundation to explore the complex molecular basis of cuticular wax biosynthesis.
Project description:Plants have evolved a sophisticated defense system to survive under natural drought conditions. MicroRNAs (miRNA) are small noncoding RNAs that act as a post-transcriptional regulator in the environmental stress response and developmental process. Although many studies have reported the involvement of the miRNAs in drought response, molecular mechanisms by which miRNAs confer drought tolerance remain elusive. Here, we show that MIR171f, a member of MIR171 gene family, is mainly expressed in response to drought stress and regulate transcript levels of SCARECROW-LIKE6-I (SCL6-I) and SCL6-II. The SCL6 genes are known to be involved in shoot branching and flag leaf morphology. The MIR171f-overexpressing (MIR171f-OE) transgenic plants showed reduced drought symptoms as compared with non-transgenic (NT) control plants under both field drought and PEG-mediated dehydration stress conditions. Transcriptome analysis using the MIR171f-OE and mir171f-K/O mutants revealed that MIR171f regulates the expression of flavonoid biosynthesis genes, consequently leading to drought tolerance. Flavonoid biosynthesis genes were up-regulated in MIR171f-OE plants as compared with NT control plants under both normal and drought conditions. Together, our findings demonstrated that MIR171f plays an important role in plant drought-tolerance mechanism by regulating transcript levels of SCL6-I and SCL6-II.