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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Genet.
Sec. Genomics of Plants and the Phytoecosystem
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fgene.2024.1524118

Identification of Crucial Drought-Tolerant Genes of Barley through Comparative Transcriptomic Analysis and Yeast-Based Stress Assay

Provisionally accepted
Xiaoyan He Xiaoyan He Congjun Su Congjun Su Xinyi Zhang Xinyi Zhang Zhaoxia Shi Zhaoxia Shi Yanjie Wang Yanjie Wang Huandi Peng Huandi Peng Shuying Fang Shuying Fang Xinyu Chen Xinyu Chen Huayan Yin Huayan Yin Jianbin Zeng Jianbin Zeng *Ping Mu Ping Mu *
  • College of Agronomy, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Drought is a persistent and serious threat to crop yield and quality. The identification and functional characterization of drought tolerance-related genes is thus vital for efforts to support the genetic improvement of drought-tolerant crops. Barley is highly adaptable and renowned for its robust stress resistance, making it an ideal subject for efforts to explore genes related to drought tolerance. In this study, two barley materials with different drought tolerance were subjected to soil drought treatment, including a variety with strong drought tolerance (Hindmarsh) and a genotype with weaker drought tolerance (XZ5). Transcriptomic sequencing data from the aboveground parts of these plants led to the identification of 1,206 differentially expressed genes associated with drought tolerance. These genes were upregulated in Hindmarsh following drought stress exposure but downregulated or unchanged in XZ5 under these same conditions, or were unchanged in Hindmarsh but downregulated in XZ5. Pathway enrichment analyses suggested that these genes are most closely associated with defense responses, signal recognition, photosynthesis, and the biosynthesis of various secondary metabolites. Using protein-protein interaction networks, the ankyrin repeat domain-containing protein 17-like isoform X2 was predicted to impact other drought tolerance-related protein targets in Hindmarsh. In MapMan metabolic pathway analyses, genes found to be associated with the maintenance of drought tolerance in Hindmarsh under adverse conditions were predicted to include genes involved in the abscisic acid, cytokinin, and gibberellin phytohormone signaling pathways, genes associated with redox homeostasis related to ascorbate and glutathione S-transferase, transporters including ABC and AAAP, transcription factors such as AP2/ERF and bHLH, the heat shock proteins HSP60 and HSP70, and the sucrose non-fermenting-1-related protein kinase. Heterologous HvSnRK2 (one of the identified genes,

    Keywords: barley, drought, Transcriptome sequencing, metabolic pathway, yeast-based stress assay

    Received: 07 Nov 2024; Accepted: 25 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 He, Su, Zhang, Shi, Wang, Peng, Fang, Chen, Yin, Zeng and Mu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Jianbin Zeng, College of Agronomy, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, China
    Ping Mu, College of Agronomy, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, China

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