One of the major objectives of rice (Oryza sativa L.) breeding programs is the development of new varieties with higher tolerance/resistance to both abiotic and biotic stresses. In this study, Italian rice cultivars were subjected to osmotic stress or benzothiadiazole (BTH) treatments. An analysis of the expression of selected genes known to be involved in the stress response and (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H NMR) metabolic profiling were combined with multivariate statistical analyses to elucidate potential correlations between gene expression or metabolite content and observed tolerant/resistant phenotypes. We observed that the expression of three chosen genes (two WRKY genes and one peroxidase encoding gene) differed between susceptible and resistant cultivars in response to BTH treatments. Moreover, the analysis of metabolite content, in particular in the osmotic stress experiment, enabled discrimination between selected cultivars based on differences in the accumulation of some primary metabolites, primarily sugars. This research highlights the potential usefulness of this approach to characterise rice varieties based on transcriptional or metabolic changes due to adverse environmental conditions.
Keywords: (1)H NMR; BTH; F(0); F(m); Multivariate statistical analysis; NMR; NPQ; OPLS-DA; Oryza sativa; Osmotic stress; PCA; PEG; PLS-DA; PR; ROS; RWC; SA; SAR; TF; Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae; Xoo; Y; benzothiadiazole; maximal fluorescence; minimal fluorescence; non-photochemical quenching; nuclear magnetic resonance; orthogonal projections to latent structures discriminant analysis; partial least square discriminant analysis; pathogenesis-related; photochemical quenching; polyethylene glycol; principal component analysis; qP; qRT-PCR; quantitative real time-polymerase chain reaction; reactive oxygen species; relative water content; salicylic acid; systemic acquired resistance; the actual quantum yield of PSII; transcription factor.
Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.