Abstract
Cucumber is an economically important crop cultivated worldwide. Gibberellins (GAs) play important roles in the development of lateral roots (LRs), which are critical for plant stress tolerance and productivity. Therefore, it is of great importance for cucumber production to study the role of GAs in LR development. Here, the results showed that GAs regulated cucumber LR development in a concentration-dependent manner. Treatment with 1, 10, 50 and 100 μM GA3 significantly increased secondary root length, tertiary root number and length. Of these, 50 μM GA3 treatment had strong effects on increasing root dry weight and the root/shoot dry weight ratio. Pairwise comparisons identified 417 down-regulated genes enriched for GA metabolism-related processes and 447 up-regulated genes enriched for cell wall metabolism-related processes in GA3-treated roots. A total of 3523 non-redundant DEGs were identified in our RNA-Seq data through pairwise comparisons and linear factorial modeling. Of these, most of the genes involved in auxin and cell wall metabolisms were up-regulated in GA3-treated roots. Our findings not only shed light on LR regulation mediated by GA but also offer an important resource for functional studies of candidate genes putatively involved in the regulation of LR development in cucumber and other crops.
Highlights
Cucumber is an economically important crop cultivated worldwide
GAs positively regulate Lateral roots (LRs) development in cucumber putatively associated with enhanced IAA and cell wall metabolisms
Our findings shed light on LR regulation mediated by GA and offer an important resource for functional studies of candidate genes putatively involved in the regulation of LR development in cucumber and other crops
Summary
Cucumber is an economically important crop cultivated worldwide. it is susceptible to various stresses due to weak and shallow root systems, limiting its productivity. Lateral roots (LRs) are critical for plant stress tolerance and productivity. Increasing evidence showed that gibberellins (GAs) play important roles, positively or negatively, in LR development in many plants. It is of great importance for cucumber production to study the role of GAs in LR development. Root system architecture is an integrative result of lateral root (LR) initiation, morphogenesis and growth. LR initiation begins with priming of three pairs of xylem pole pericycle (XPP) cells within the root transition zone and elongation zone [9,10,11], and subsequent specification of founder cells followed by asymmetric cell division, resulting in lateral root primordium (LRP) formation [7, 12, 13]. After the LRs emergence and growth, new lateral roots undergo further reiterative branching, forming building blocks of the root system [12, 14,15,16]
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