Abstract
Salinity is a major constraint for intrinsically salt sensitive grain legume chickpea. Chickpea exhibits large genetic variation amongst cultivars, which show better yields in saline conditions but still need to be improved further for sustainable crop production. Based on previous multi-location physiological screening, JG 11 (salt tolerant) and ICCV 2 (salt sensitive) were subjected to salt stress to evaluate their physiological and transcriptional responses. A total of ~480 million RNA-Seq reads were sequenced from root tissues which resulted in identification of 3,053 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in response to salt stress. Reproductive stage shows high number of DEGs suggesting major transcriptional reorganization in response to salt to enable tolerance. Importantly, cationic peroxidase, Aspartic ase, NRT1/PTR, phosphatidylinositol phosphate kinase, DREB1E and ERF genes were significantly up-regulated in tolerant genotype. In addition, we identified a suite of important genes involved in cell wall modification and root morphogenesis such as dirigent proteins, expansin and casparian strip membrane proteins that could potentially confer salt tolerance. Further, phytohormonal cross-talk between ERF and PIN-FORMED genes which modulate the root growth was observed. The gene set enrichment analysis and functional annotation of these genes suggests they may be utilised as potential candidates for improving chickpea salt tolerance.
Highlights
Salinity is a major problem for crop production especially in the arid and semi-arid regions where chickpea is mainly cultivated[2,3]
The root dry weight, shoot dry weight and surface leaf area were almost same in both the genotypes in control condition while it reduced by 50% in both the genotypes in the stress condition
The availability of chickpea genome has provided a new opportunity to study the candidate genes involved in salt tolerance mechanisms in chickpea
Summary
Salinity is a major problem for crop production especially in the arid and semi-arid regions where chickpea is mainly cultivated[2,3]. Salinity disturbs the cellular ionic and osmotic environment within the plant This severely affects important processes like photosynthesis and other important metabolic processes leading to retarded plant growth and poor reproductive success[11,12]. There has been considerable progress on improving salt tolerance in crops like wheat, rice, and soybean where identification and expression of potential candidate genes such as transmembrane ion-transporters led to improved tolerance. The aim of this study was to identify the comprehensive set of genes involved in modulation of salt stress tolerance in chickpea at various developmental stages
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