Physiological response and transcriptome analyses of leguminous Indigofera bungeana Walp. to drought stress

Shuang Ma; Haiying Hu; Hao Zhang; Fenghua Ma; Zhihao Gao; Xueying Li

doi:10.7717/peerj.15440

Physiological response and transcriptome analyses of leguminous Indigofera bungeana Walp. to drought stress

PeerJ. 2023 Jun 14:11:e15440. doi: 10.7717/peerj.15440. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Shuang Ma¹, Haiying Hu^{1

2}, Hao Zhang¹, Fenghua Ma¹, Zhihao Gao¹, Xueying Li¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Forestry and Prataculture, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, Ningxia, China.
² Breeding Base for State Key Laboratory of Land Degradation and Ecological Restoration of North-Western China, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, Ningxia, China.

Abstract

Objective: Indigofera bungeana is a shrub with high quality protein that has been widely utilized for forage grass in the semi-arid regions of China. This study aimed to enrich the currently available knowledge and clarify the detailed drought stress regulatory mechanisms in I. bungeana, and provide a theoretical foundation for the cultivation and resistance breeding of forage crops.

Methods: This study evaluates the response mechanism to drought stress by exploiting multiple parameters and transcriptomic analyses of a 1-year-old seedlings of I. bungeana in a pot experiment.

Results: Drought stress significantly caused physiological changes in I. bungeana. The antioxidant enzyme activities and osmoregulation substance content of I. bungeana showed an increase under drought. Moreover, 3,978 and 6,923 differentially expressed genes were approved by transcriptome in leaves and roots. The transcription factors, hormone signal transduction, carbohydrate metabolism of regulatory network were observed to have increased. In both tissues, genes related to plant hormone signaling transduction pathway might play a more pivotal role in drought tolerance. Transcription factors families like basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH), vian myeloblastosis viral oncogene homolog (MYB), basic leucine zipper (bZIP) and the metabolic pathway related-genes like serine/threonine-phosphatase 2C (PP2C), SNF1-related protein kinase 2 (SnRK2), indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), auxin (AUX28), small auxin up-regulated rna (SAUR), sucrose synthase (SUS), sucrosecarriers (SUC) were highlighted for future research about drought stress resistance in Indigofera bungeana.

Conclusion: Our study posited I. bungeana mainly participate in various physiological and metabolic activities to response severe drought stress, by regulating the expression of the related genes in hormone signal transduction. These findings, which may be valuable for drought resistance breeding, and to clarify the drought stress regulatory mechanisms of I. bungeana and other plants.

Keywords: Differential gene expression; Drought stress; Indigofera bungeana Walp; Regulatory pathways; Transcriptomics.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Droughts
Fabaceae* / metabolism
Gene Expression Profiling
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / genetics
Hormones
Humans
Indigofera* / metabolism
Indoleacetic Acids
Infant
Plant Breeding
Transcription Factors / metabolism

Substances

Indoleacetic Acids
Transcription Factors
Hormones

Grants and funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO.32160406), the First-class Discipline Construction (Grassland Science Discipline) for the high school in Ningxia (NO. NXYLXK2017A01), and the Natural Science Foundation of Ningxia Province (NO.2022AAC03080). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.