Abstract
Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon Pers.) is a wild Poaceae turfgrass with various genotypes and phenotypes. In this study, 16 wild bermudagrass germplasms were collected from 16 different sites along latitudinal gradients, and different temperature treatments were compiled and used for physiological and transcriptome analysis. To explore the correlation between the key differentially expressed genes and physiological indicators, a total of 14,654 DEGs were integrated from the comparison of different temperature treatments and used for weighted gene co-expression network analysis. Through comparative transcriptome analysis and gene annotation, the results showed that differential gene expression profiles in networks are associated with the plant growth, photosystem, redox system, and transcriptional regulation to cold stress in bermudagrass. In particular, genes encoding HSP70/90 and HsfA3/A8 are not only regulated by temperature stress, but also directly or indirectly interplay with the processes of peroxide scavenging and chlorophyll synthesis under cold stress. Besides, through a weight evaluation analysis of various physiological indexes, we identified an accession of wild bermudagrass with relatively strong cold resistance. These results provide important clues and resources to further study the responses to low-temperature stress in bermudagrass.
Highlights
Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) is a perennial grass of the Poaceae family, which is widely distributed in tropical to temperate regions (Taliaferro, 1995)
Among all the same latitudes, the number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) shared by the three temperature comparison groups is less, which indicates that these wild bermudagrasses have altered responses to different temperatures at the transcription level (Figure 1)
Following the weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) of the physiological index and gene expression in all bermudagrass materials treated at different temperatures, an important goal of this study using these wild accessions is to acknowledge the molecular mechanisms relevant for plant growth regulation, photosynthesis, and response to cold stress in bermudagrass, which can be used to identify accessions with improved resistance to cold stress
Summary
Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) is a perennial grass of the Poaceae family, which is widely distributed in tropical to temperate regions (Taliaferro, 1995). As a warm-season turfgrass, the wild germplasm resources of bermudagrass are abundant and diverse in nature. The sensitivity of bermudagrass in different areas to temperature is variable (Anderson and Taliaferro, 2002). Wild germplasm resources derived from different latitudes or climatic zones are excellent materials for studying the potential mechanism of their response to temperature stress. The freezing tolerance of natural accessions is related to some compatible metabolites and transcription factors (TFs) in Arabidopsis thaliana (Hannah et al, 2006). Regulation of Bermudagrass Response to Cold Stress the phenotypic variation and C-repeat binding factor (CBF) gene family were examined in Populus balsamifera across different latitudes (Menon et al, 2015)
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