Abstract
BackgroundSolanum lycopersicum and Solanum habrochaites are closely related plant species; however, their cold tolerance capacities are different. The wild species S. habrochaites is more cold tolerant than the cultivated species S. lycopersicum.ResultsThe transcriptomes of S. lycopersicum and S. habrochaites leaf tissues under cold stress were studied using Illumina high-throughput RNA sequencing. The results showed that more than 200 million reads could be mapped to identify genes, microRNAs (miRNAs), and alternative splicing (AS) events to confirm the transcript abundance under cold stress. The results indicated that 21 % and 23 % of genes were differentially expressed in the cultivated and wild tomato species, respectively, and a series of changes in S. lycopersicum and S. habrochaites transcriptomes occur when plants are moved from warm to cold conditions. Moreover, the gene expression patterns for S. lycopersicum and S. habrochaites were dissimilar; however, there were some overlapping genes that were regulated by low temperature in both tomato species. An AS analysis identified 75,885 novel splice junctions among 172,910 total splice junctions, which suggested that the relative abundance of alternative intron isoforms in S. lycopersicum and S. habrochaites shifted significantly under cold stress. In addition, we identified 89 miRNA sequences that may regulate relevant target genes. Our data indicated that some miRNAs (e.g., miR159, miR319, and miR6022) play roles in the response to cold stress.ConclusionsDifferences in gene expression, AS events, and miRNAs under cold stress may contribute to the observed differences in cold tolerance of these two tomato species.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-015-0521-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Solanum lycopersicum and Solanum habrochaites are closely related plant species; their cold tolerance capacities are different
To understand the molecular basis underlying why S. habrochaites can acclimate to cold and survive freezing temperatures, whereas S. lycopersicum cannot, we report the results of an RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) transcriptome and miRNA analysis of RNA populations obtained from cold-treated leaves of the two plants
The gene expression profiles in S. lycopersicum and S. habrochaites changed under cold stress to different degrees; there were some overlapping genes that were regulated by low temperature in both tomato species
Summary
Solanum lycopersicum and Solanum habrochaites are closely related plant species; their cold tolerance capacities are different. The wild species S. habrochaites is more cold tolerant than the cultivated species S. lycopersicum. Some plants increase their cold tolerance to deal with low temperatures; this phenomenon is termed cold acclimation. During this process, various biochemical and physiological changes occur in plants, which make plants more cold tolerant. Overexpression of CBF1, CBF2, or CBF3 of Arabidopsis thaliana caused an increase in cold tolerance in the absence of cold stress in plants, showing that the CBF genes improve cold tolerance [8,9,10,11]. Studies have shown that overexpression of CBF genes increases the cold tolerance of A. thaliana [8,9], Brassica napus [12], poplar [13], and potato [14], but not in tomato [1]
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