Abstract
The growth, development, and production of banana plants are constrained by multiple abiotic stressors. However, it remains elusive for the tolerance mechanisms of banana responding to multiple abiotic stresses. In this study, we found that Fen Jiao (FJ) was more tolerant to osmotic, cold, and salt stresses than BaXi Jiao (BX) by phenotypic and physiological analyses. Comparative transcriptomic analyses highlighted stress tolerance genes that either specifically regulated in FJ or changed more than twofold in FJ relative to BX after treatments. In total, 933, 1644, and 133 stress tolerance genes were identified after osmotic, cold, and salt treatments, respectively. Further integrated analyses found that 30 tolerance genes, including transcription factor, heat shock protein, and E3 ubiquitin protein ligase, could be commonly regulated by osmotic, cold, and salt stresses. Finally, ABA and ROS signaling networks were found to be more active in FJ than in BX under osmotic, cold, and salt treatments, which may contribute to the strong stress tolerances of FJ. Together, this study provides new insights into the tolerance mechanism of banana responding to multiple stresses, thus leading to potential applications in the genetic improvement of multiple abiotic stress tolerances in banana.
Highlights
The investigation of banana gene expression patterns in response to environmental stressors will pave the way for further understanding the regulatory networks of abiotic stress acclimation in plants and help to select candidate genes for manipulation to improve abiotic stress tolerances
The third, fourth, and fifth BX leaves from the top obviously wilted and drooped after 7 days treatment, whereas the symptom was much weaker in FJ leaves (Fig. 1A)
Integrated investigation of the transcriptional response of banana to abiotic stress, including drought/osmotic, salt, and cold stresses is beneficial for understanding the regulatory networks of multiple abiotic stress acclimations and obtaining candidate genes to improve stress tolerance
Summary
Davey et al.[15] used microarrays to show that 2910 banana genes had differential expression levels after drought treatment. Lee et al.[16] reported that more than 2980 expressed unigenes showed transcriptional changes when banana roots were subjected to salt stress based on RNA-seq. 92 genes were commonly identified as differentially expressed in the three genotypes of banana after osmotic treatment[17]. No evidence has been found to integratedly investigate the stress tolerance mechanisms of banana to multiple environmental stressors, including osmotic, cold, and salt stresses. The banana varieties based on “ABB” genotype can be used as a crucial genetic resource for crop improvement for abiotic stress. We aimed to integratedly study the osmotic, cold and salt stress tolerance mechanisms of banana by comparative physiological and transcriptomic analyses of the BaXi Jiao (AAA genotype) and Fen Jiao (ABB genotype)
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