biologia plantarum

Biologia plantarum 63:610-617, 2019 | DOI: 10.32615/bp.2019.066

Identification of differentially expressed genes of Haloxylon ammodendronin response to salinity stress

J.F. HE¹, Y.Y. FANG¹, Z.X. LU³, L.W. WANG¹, X.Q. ZHAO¹, X.F. FU¹, J. ZHAO^2,*, H.K. LIU^1,*

Biotechnology Research Centre, Inner Mongolia Academy of Agriculture & Animal Husbandry Sciences,

¹ Hohhot, 010030, P.R. China

Reproductive Centre, Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University, Hohhot, 010050, P.R. China²

³ Lethbridge Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge, Alberta T1J4B1, Canada

Haloxylon ammodendron (C.A. Mey.), an endangered desert tree with excellent drought and salinity tolerance, provides a unique genotype to characterize and understand the tolerance mechanisms. In this study, four RNA-Seq libraries were constructed and sequenced from H. ammodendron under salinity stress. Total 12 027 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, in which 4 023, 3 517, 4 487 genes were differentially expressed under light salinity stress (200 mM NaCl), moderate salinity stress (400 mM NaCl), and severe salinity stress (800 mM NaCl), respectively. The up-regulated DEGs included several transcription factors (e.g., MYB and bHLH), hormone-related genes (e.g., cytochrome P450), protein kinases (e.g., Atpk2-Atpk19 like), and genes involved in carbon metabolism (e.g., UDP glycosyltransferase), osmotic regulation (e.g., proline transporter), and ubiquitin proteasome system (e.g., ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes). Heat shock proteins were identified as positive regulators of salinity tolerance in H. ammodendron. The expression patterns of 13 DEGs verified by real-time quantitative PCR were identically consistent with the variations in transcript abundance identified by RNA-Seq. Our results provide new insights into molecular mechanism of H. ammodendron in response to salinity stress.

Keywords: carbon metabolism, drought and salinity tolerance, heat shock proteins, hormone-related genes, NaCl, RNA-Seq, transcription factors.

Received: May 24, 2018; Revised: March 25, 2019; Accepted: April 8, 2019; Published online: September 16, 2019  Show citation