Drought stress in 'Shine Muscat' grapevine: Consequences and a novel mitigation strategy-5-aminolevulinic acid

Yuxian Yang; Jiaxin Xia; Xiang Fang; Haoran Jia; Xicheng Wang; Yiling Lin; Siyu Liu; Mengqing Ge; Yunfeng Pu; Jinggui Fang; Lingfei Shangguan

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1129114

Drought stress in 'Shine Muscat' grapevine: Consequences and a novel mitigation strategy-5-aminolevulinic acid

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Mar 15:14:1129114. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1129114. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yuxian Yang^{1

2}, Jiaxin Xia^{1

2}, Xiang Fang^{2

3}, Haoran Jia^{1

2}, Xicheng Wang⁴, Yiling Lin^{1

2}, Siyu Liu^{1

2}, Mengqing Ge^{1

2}, Yunfeng Pu⁵, Jinggui Fang^{1

2}, Lingfei Shangguan^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
² Fruit Crop Variety Improvement and Seedling Propagation Engineering Research Center of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
³ School of Agronomy and Horticulture, Jiangsu Vocational College of Agriculture and Forestry, Jurong, Jiangsu, China.
⁴ Institute of Pomology, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
⁵ College of Life Sciences, Tarim University, Alar, Xinjiang, China.

Abstract

Drought is a common and serious abiotic stress in viticulture, and it is urgent to select effective measures to alleviate it. The new plant growth regulator 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) has been utilized to alleviate abiotic stresses in agriculture in recent years, which provided a novel idea to mitigate drought stress in viticulture. The leaves of 'Shine Muscat' grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) seedlings were treated with drought (Dro), drought plus 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA, 50 mg/L) (Dro_ALA) and normal watering (Control) to clarify the regulatory network used by ALA to alleviate drought stress in grapevine. Physiological indicators showed that ALA could effectively reduce the accumulation of malondialdehyde (MDA) and increase the activities of peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in grapevine leaves under drought stress. At the end of treatment (day 16), the MDA content in Dro_ALA was reduced by 27.63% compared with that in Dro, while the activities of POD and SOD reached 2.97- and 5.09-fold of those in Dro, respectively. Furthermore, ALA reduces abscisic acid by upregulating CYP707A1, thus, relieving the closure of stomata under drought. The chlorophyll metabolic pathway and photosynthetic system are the major pathways affected by ALA to alleviate drought. Changes in the genes of chlorophyll synthesis, including CHLH, CHLD, POR, and DVR; genes related to degradation, such as CLH, SGR, PPH and PAO; the RCA gene that is related to Rubisco; and the genes AGT1 and GDCSP related to photorespiration form the basis of these pathways. In addition, the antioxidant system and osmotic regulation play important roles that enable ALA to maintain cell homeostasis under drought. The reduction of glutathione, ascorbic acid and betaine after the application of ALA confirmed the alleviation of drought. In summary, this study revealed the mechanism of effects of drought stress on grapevine, and the alleviating effect of ALA, which provides a new concept to alleviate drought stress in grapevine and other plants.

Keywords: ALA; alleviation; drought stress; grapevine; metabolome; transcriptome.

Grants and funding

This project was funded by the National Key Research and Development Project [grant number: 2018YFD1000300], Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [grant number: BK20201321], Jiangsu Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Fund [grant number: CX(21)2027], National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number: 31772283], Postdoctoral Research Fund Project of Jiangsu Province [grant number: 2020Z052], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number: KYLH201903], Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD), and President's Foundation of Tarim University [grant number: NMLH201902].