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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1439747
This article is part of the Research Topic Salinity and Drought Stress in Plants: Understanding Physiological, Biochemical and Molecular Responses Volume II View all 8 articles

Integrative transcriptome and metabolome analysis reveals the mechanism of fulvic acid alleviating drought stress in oat

Provisionally accepted
Shanshan Zhu Shanshan Zhu 1,2Junzhen Mi Junzhen Mi 1,2,3*Baoping Zhao Baoping Zhao 1,2,3Zhaoming Wang Zhaoming Wang 4*Zhixue Yang Zhixue Yang 1,2*Mengxin Wang Mengxin Wang 1,2*Jinghui Liu Jinghui Liu 1,2,3*
  • 1 Inner Mongolia Agricultural University Coarse Cereals Industry Collaborative Innovation Center, Hohhot, China
  • 2 National agricultural scientific research outstanding talents and their innovation team / Inner Mongolia grassland talents innovation team, Hohhot, China
  • 3 Oat Engineering Research Center of Inner Mongolia University / Oat Engineering Laboratory of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hohhot, China
  • 4 National Center of Pratacultural Technology Innovation/M-Grass Ecology And Environment (Group) Co., Ltd., Hohhot, China

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

    Drought stress inhibits oat growth and yield. The application of fulvic acid (FA) couldan improve the drought resistance of oats, but the corresponding molecular mechanism of FA-mediated drought resistance of oats remainsis still unclear. Here, we studied the effects of FA on the drought tolerance of oat leaves through physiological, transcriptomic, and metabolomics analyseis, and identified FAinduced genes and metabolites related to drought tolerance. Physiological analysis showed that under drought stress, FA increased the relative water content and chlorophyll contents of oat leaves, enhanced the activity of antioxidant enzymes (SOD, POD, PAL, and CAT and 4CL), inhibited the accumulation of malondialdehyde (MDA), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and dehydroascorbic acid (DHA), reduced the degree of oxidative damage in oat leaves, improved the drought resistance of oats, and promoted the growth of oat plants. Transcriptome and metabolite analyses revealed 652 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 571 differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) in FA-treated oat leaves under drought stress. These DEGs and DEMs are involved in a variety of biological processes, such as phenylspropanoid biosynthesis and glutathione metabolism pathways. In aAdditionallyddition, FA may be involved in regulating the role of DEGs and DEMs in phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and glutathione metabolism under drought stress. In conclusion, our results suggest that FA promotes oat growth under drought stress by attenuating membrane lipid peroxidation and regulating the antioxidant system, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, and glutathione metabolism pathways in oat leaves. This study provides new insights into the complex mechanisms by which FA improves drought tolerance in crops.

    Keywords: OAT1, drought stress2, fulvic acid3, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis4, glutathione metabolism5

    Received: 28 May 2024; Accepted: 30 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhu, Mi, Zhao, Wang, Yang, Wang and Liu. 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:
    Junzhen Mi, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University Coarse Cereals Industry Collaborative Innovation Center, Hohhot, China
    Zhaoming Wang, National Center of Pratacultural Technology Innovation/M-Grass Ecology And Environment (Group) Co., Ltd., Hohhot, China
    Zhixue Yang, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University Coarse Cereals Industry Collaborative Innovation Center, Hohhot, China
    Mengxin Wang, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University Coarse Cereals Industry Collaborative Innovation Center, Hohhot, China
    Jinghui Liu, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University Coarse Cereals Industry Collaborative Innovation Center, Hohhot, China

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