Aquaporins (AQPs) in plants can transport water and small molecules, and they play an important role in plant development and abiotic stress response. However, to date, a comprehensive study on AQP family members is lacking. In this study, 27 AQP genes were identified from the passion fruit genome and classified into four groups (NIP, PIP, TIP, SIP) on the basis of their phylogenetic relationships. The prediction of protein interactions indicated that the AQPs of passion fruit were mainly associated with AQP family members and boron protein family genes. Promoter cis-acting elements showed that most PeAQPs contain light response elements, hormone response elements, and abiotic stress response elements. According to collinear analysis, passion fruit is more closely related to Arabidopsis than rice. Furthermore, three different fruit ripening stages and different tissues were analyzed on the basis of the transcriptome sequencing results for passion fruit AQPs under drought, high-salt, cold and high-temperature stress, and the results were confirmed by qRT-PCR. The results showed that the PeAQPs were able to respond to different abiotic stresses, and some members could be induced by and expressed in response to multiple abiotic stresses at the same time. Among the three different fruit ripening stages, 15 AQPs had the highest expression levels in the first stage. AQPs are expressed in all tissues of the passion fruit. One of the passion fruit aquaporin genes, PeTIP3-2, which was induced by drought stress, was selected and transformed into Arabidopsis. The survival rate of transgenic plants under drought stress treatment is higher than that of wild-type plants. The results indicated that PeTIP3-2 was able to improve the drought resistance of plants. Our discovery lays the foundation for the functional study of AQPs in passion fruit.
Keywords: abiotic stress; aquaporin (AQP); expression analysis; fruit maturity stage; passion fruit.