Mingquan Wang1,2, Yufeng Wang1, Yifei Zhang1, Chunxia Li2, Shichen Gong2, Shuqin Yan2, Guoliang Li2, Guanghui Hu2, Honglei Ren2, Jianfei Yang2, Tao Yu2, Kejun Yang3. 1. College of Agronomy, Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University/Key Laboratory of Crop Germplasm Improvement and Cultivation in Cold Regions of Education Department, Daqing, 163319, China. 2. Maize Research Institute of Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin, 150086, China. 3. College of Agronomy, Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University/Key Laboratory of Crop Germplasm Improvement and Cultivation in Cold Regions of Education Department, Daqing, 163319, China. byyangkejun@163.com.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Salt stress is a devastating environmental stress that causes plant growth inhibition and yield reduction. OBJECTIVE: The identification of salt-tolerant genes brings hope for the generation of salinity-tolerant crop plants through molecular breeding. METHODS: In this study, one salt-sensitive and one salt-tolerant maize inbred line were screened from 242 maize inbred lines. Reactive oxygen species (ROS)-related enzyme activities were detected and salt-responsive comparative transcriptome analysis was performed for control and 220 mM NaCl treated maize leaves. RESULTS: Salt-tolerant maize inbred line (L87) showed higher ROS-related enzyme (SOD, POD, APX and CAT) activities and accumulated relatively lower levels of ROS under salt stress. Of the total DEGs, 1856 upregulated DEGs were specific to L87, including stress tolerance-related members of the 70kDa family of heat shock proteins (Hsp70s) and aquaporins. The DEGs involved in the abscisic acid (ABA), ethylene, jasmonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA) signal transduction pathways may determine the difference in salt tolerance between the two varieties, especially one central component SnRK2, that positively regulates ABA signaling and was only upregulated in L87. Analysis of DEGs related to ROS scavenging showed that some peroxidase (POD), glutathione S-transferase (GST), catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) genes specific to L87 probably enhanced its salt tolerance. The analysis of differentially expressed transcription factors (TFs) suggested that WRKY TFs could contribute to the difference in salt tolerance between the two maize lines. CONCLUSION: Compared with Salt-sensitive maize inbred line (L29), L87 exhibits specific regulatory mechanisms related to salt tolerance, including plant hormone interactions, ROS scavenging and the regulation of TFs. Our study identifies new candidate genes that may regulate maize tolerance to salt stress and provides useful information for breeding maize with high salt resistance.
BACKGROUND:Salt stress is a devastating environmental stress that causes plant growth inhibition and yield reduction. OBJECTIVE: The identification of salt-tolerant genes brings hope for the generation of salinity-tolerant crop plants through molecular breeding. METHODS: In this study, one salt-sensitive and one salt-tolerant maize inbred line were screened from 242 maize inbred lines. Reactive oxygen species (ROS)-related enzyme activities were detected and salt-responsive comparative transcriptome analysis was performed for control and 220 mM NaCl treated maize leaves. RESULTS:Salt-tolerant maize inbred line (L87) showed higher ROS-related enzyme (SOD, POD, APX and CAT) activities and accumulated relatively lower levels of ROS under salt stress. Of the total DEGs, 1856 upregulated DEGs were specific to L87, including stress tolerance-related members of the 70kDa family of heat shock proteins (Hsp70s) and aquaporins. The DEGs involved in the abscisic acid (ABA), ethylene, jasmonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA) signal transduction pathways may determine the difference in salt tolerance between the two varieties, especially one central component SnRK2, that positively regulates ABA signaling and was only upregulated in L87. Analysis of DEGs related to ROS scavenging showed that some peroxidase (POD), glutathione S-transferase (GST), catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) genes specific to L87 probably enhanced its salt tolerance. The analysis of differentially expressed transcription factors (TFs) suggested that WRKY TFs could contribute to the difference in salt tolerance between the two maize lines. CONCLUSION: Compared with Salt-sensitive maize inbred line (L29), L87 exhibits specific regulatory mechanisms related to salt tolerance, including plant hormone interactions, ROS scavenging and the regulation of TFs. Our study identifies new candidate genes that may regulate maize tolerance to salt stress and provides useful information for breeding maize with high salt resistance.
Authors: Patrick S Schnable; Doreen Ware; Robert S Fulton; Joshua C Stein; Fusheng Wei; Shiran Pasternak; Chengzhi Liang; Jianwei Zhang; Lucinda Fulton; Tina A Graves; Patrick Minx; Amy Denise Reily; Laura Courtney; Scott S Kruchowski; Chad Tomlinson; Cindy Strong; Kim Delehaunty; Catrina Fronick; Bill Courtney; Susan M Rock; Eddie Belter; Feiyu Du; Kyung Kim; Rachel M Abbott; Marc Cotton; Andy Levy; Pamela Marchetto; Kerri Ochoa; Stephanie M Jackson; Barbara Gillam; Weizu Chen; Le Yan; Jamey Higginbotham; Marco Cardenas; Jason Waligorski; Elizabeth Applebaum; Lindsey Phelps; Jason Falcone; Krishna Kanchi; Thynn Thane; Adam Scimone; Nay Thane; Jessica Henke; Tom Wang; Jessica Ruppert; Neha Shah; Kelsi Rotter; Jennifer Hodges; Elizabeth Ingenthron; Matt Cordes; Sara Kohlberg; Jennifer Sgro; Brandon Delgado; Kelly Mead; Asif Chinwalla; Shawn Leonard; Kevin Crouse; Kristi Collura; Dave Kudrna; Jennifer Currie; Ruifeng He; Angelina Angelova; Shanmugam Rajasekar; Teri Mueller; Rene Lomeli; Gabriel Scara; Ara Ko; Krista Delaney; Marina Wissotski; Georgina Lopez; David Campos; Michele Braidotti; Elizabeth Ashley; Wolfgang Golser; HyeRan Kim; Seunghee Lee; Jinke Lin; Zeljko Dujmic; Woojin Kim; Jayson Talag; Andrea Zuccolo; Chuanzhu Fan; Aswathy Sebastian; Melissa Kramer; Lori Spiegel; Lidia Nascimento; Theresa Zutavern; Beth Miller; Claude Ambroise; Stephanie Muller; Will Spooner; Apurva Narechania; Liya Ren; Sharon Wei; Sunita Kumari; Ben Faga; Michael J Levy; Linda McMahan; Peter Van Buren; Matthew W Vaughn; Kai Ying; Cheng-Ting Yeh; Scott J Emrich; Yi Jia; Ananth Kalyanaraman; An-Ping Hsia; W Brad Barbazuk; Regina S Baucom; Thomas P Brutnell; Nicholas C Carpita; Cristian Chaparro; Jer-Ming Chia; Jean-Marc Deragon; James C Estill; Yan Fu; Jeffrey A Jeddeloh; Yujun Han; Hyeran Lee; Pinghua Li; Damon R Lisch; Sanzhen Liu; Zhijie Liu; Dawn Holligan Nagel; Maureen C McCann; Phillip SanMiguel; Alan M Myers; Dan Nettleton; John Nguyen; Bryan W Penning; Lalit Ponnala; Kevin L Schneider; David C Schwartz; Anupma Sharma; Carol Soderlund; Nathan M Springer; Qi Sun; Hao Wang; Michael Waterman; Richard Westerman; Thomas K Wolfgruber; Lixing Yang; Yeisoo Yu; Lifang Zhang; Shiguo Zhou; Qihui Zhu; Jeffrey L Bennetzen; R Kelly Dawe; Jiming Jiang; Ning Jiang; Gernot G Presting; Susan R Wessler; Srinivas Aluru; Robert A Martienssen; Sandra W Clifton; W Richard McCombie; Rod A Wing; Richard K Wilson Journal: Science Date: 2009-11-20 Impact factor: 47.728