Abstract
BackgroundAreas with saline soils are sparsely populated and have fragile ecosystems, which severely restricts the sustainable development of local economies. Zoysia grasses are recognized as excellent warm-season turfgrasses worldwide, with high salt tolerance and superior growth in saline-alkali soils. However, the mechanism underlying the salt tolerance of Zoysia species remains unknown.ResultsThe phenotypic and physiological responses of two contrasting materials, Zoysia japonica Steud. Z004 (salt sensitive) and Z011 (salt tolerant) in response to salt stress were studied. The results show that Z011 was more salt tolerant than was Z004, with the former presenting greater K+/Na+ ratios in both its leaves and roots. To study the molecular mechanisms underlying salt tolerance further, we compared the transcriptomes of the two materials at different time points (0 h, 1 h, 24 h, and 72 h) and from different tissues (leaves and roots) under salt treatment. The 24-h time point and the roots might make significant contributions to the salt tolerance. Moreover, GO and KEGG analyses of different comparisons revealed that the key DEGs participating in the salt-stress response belonged to the hormone pathway, various TF families and the DUF family.ConclusionsZoysia salt treatment transcriptome shows the 24-h and roots may make significant contributions to the salt tolerance. The auxin signal transduction family, ABA signal transduction family, WRKY TF family and bHLH TF family may be the most important families in Zoysia salt-stress regulation.
Highlights
Areas with saline soils are sparsely populated and have fragile ecosystems, which severely restricts the sustainable development of local economies
The salt treatment results showed that Z011 had strong salt tolerance and displayed good growth, while Z004 was sensitive to salt and withered and yellowed after treatment with 350 mM NaCl for 40 days (Fig. 1a)
Identification of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from comparisons of the Z004 and Z011 roots To narrow the selection range of the DEGs, we focused on those within plant hormone signal transduction families, Transcription factors (TF) families and other gene families that have been reported to be involved in salt tolerance
Summary
Areas with saline soils are sparsely populated and have fragile ecosystems, which severely restricts the sustainable development of local economies. It is important to choose high-quality salt-tolerant turfgrass suitable for landscaping in areas with saline soils. Salt tolerance evaluations have shown that the salt tolerance of Zoysia plants has rich genetic variation [25, 35, 40, 57]. This variation makes for convenient selection of materials with contrasting salt tolerances for studying the salt tolerance mechanism of Zoysia. The salt tolerance of Zoysia plants is positively correlated with the rate of Na+ secretion from salt glands in leaves and the density of salt glands per unit leaf area [21, 22, 33]. The Na+ content in leaves has been successfully used to evaluate the salt tolerance of Zoysia [25, 33, 34]
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