Abstract
For understanding the water deficit stress mechanism in sorghum, we conducted a physiological and proteomic analysis in the leaves of Sorghum bicolor L. Moench (a drought tolerant crop model) of non-colonized and colonized plants with a consortium of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Physiological results indicate that mycorrhizal fungi association enhances growth and photosynthesis in plants, under normal and water deficit conditions. 2D-electrophoresis profiles revealed 51 differentially accumulated proteins in response to water deficit, of which HPLC/MS successfully identified 49. Bioinformatics analysis of protein–protein interactions revealed the participation of different metabolic pathways in nonmycorrhizal compared to mycorrhizal sorghum plants under water deficit. In noninoculated plants, the altered proteins are related to protein synthesis and folding (50S ribosomal protein L1, 30S ribosomal protein S10, Nascent polypeptide-associated complex subunit alpha), coupled with multiple signal transduction pathways, guanine nucleotide-binding beta subunit (Rack1) and peptidyl-prolyl-cis-trans isomerase (ROC4). In contrast, in mycorrhizal plants, proteins related to energy metabolism (ATP synthase-24kDa, ATP synthase β), carbon metabolism (malate dehydrogenase, triosephosphate isomerase, sucrose-phosphatase), oxidative phosphorylation (mitochondrial-processing peptidase) and sulfur metabolism (thiosulfate/3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase) were found. Our results provide a set of proteins of different metabolic pathways involved in water deficit produced by sorghum plants alone or associated with a consortium of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi isolated from the tropical rain forest Los Tuxtlas Veracruz, México.
Highlights
We evaluated arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) colonization and physiological parameters related to water deficit treatment, such as plant and soil water potential, and gas exchange measurements in nonmycorrhizal and mycorrhizal sorghum plants under well-watered (WW) and water deficit (WD) conditions
Well-watered mycorrhizal (WWM) sorghum plants showed 78.90 ± 8.50% root colonization, 61.60 ± 17.40% vesicles and 26.70 ± 5.15% arbuscules formation, and these values changed to 76.70 ± 8.10%, Table 1 Percentage of mycorrhizal colonization, vesicles and arbuscules formation in sorghum roots under well-watered (WW) and water deficit (WD) conditions
Gene of GNB-β found in our work, interacts with genes characterized by QTL, such as mitogen-activated protein-kinase, 40S ribosomal protein S12, 40S ribosomal protein S8 and elongation factor EFTS (Fig. S3). This may suggest that the set of proteins we found in our analysis is part of a common metabolic pathway, which can represent an evolutionarily conserved mechanism in sorghum plants that promotes the maintenance of clusters involved in drought tolerance like those found in the research of Abou-Elwafa & Shehzad (2018)
Summary
AM fungi improve the nutrition and water acquisition of plants, inducing gene expression of transporters of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfate, potassium, and water exchanges (Wipf et al, 2019) and heavy metals (Tamayo et al, 2014; Dhawi, Datta & Ramakrishna, 2016) It protects plants against fungal pathogens (Pozo & AzcónAguilar, 2007; Liu et al, 2007; Akhtar & Siddiqui, 2008) and other abiotic stress (Augé, 2001; Miransari et al, 2008; Lenoir, Fontaine & Sahraoui, 2016).
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