Abstract
Low temperatures (LT) in spring can have a major impact on the yields of wheat in winter. Wheat varieties with different cold sensitivities (the cold-tolerant Yannong 19 variety and the cold-sensitive Yangmai 18 variety) were used to study the responses of the wheat grain starch synthesis and dry material accumulation to short-term LT during the booting stage. The effects of short-term LT on the activities of key wheat grain starch synthesis enzymes, starch content and grain dry-matter accumulation were determined by exposing the wheat to simulated LT of from −2 to 2°C. Short-term LT stress caused a decrease in the fullness of the wheat grains along with decreased activities of adenosine diphosphate glucose pyrophosphorylase (AGPase, EC2.7.7.27), soluble starch synthase (SSS, EC2.4.1.21), granule-bound starch synthase (GBSS, EC2.4.1.21), and starch branching enzyme (SBE, EC2.4.1.18) at different spike positions during the filling stage. The rate of grain starch accumulation and starch content decreased with decreasing temperatures. Also, the duration of grain filling increased, the mean and the maximum filling rates were reduced and the quality of the grain dry-matter decreased. The number of grains per spike and the thousand-grain weight of the mature grains also decreased. Our data showed that short-term LT stress at the booting stage caused a decrease in the activities of key starch synthesis enzymes at the grain-filling stage. These changes reduced the accumulation of starch, decreased the filling rate, and lowered the accumulation of grain dry matter to ultimately decrease grain yields.
Highlights
Low temperature stress is a major limiting factor seriously affecting global wheat production and development (Xiao et al, 2021)
The activities of key starch synthesis enzymes during grain development are extremely sensitive to ambient temperature that can directly affect the synthesis of starch in wheat grains (Thitisaksakul et al, 2012; Davinder et al, 2018)
We demonstrated that the activities of key starch synthesis enzymes (AGPase, SSS, GBSS and SBE) during the grain-filling stage all showed a single-peak curve
Summary
Low temperature stress is a major limiting factor seriously affecting global wheat production and development (Xiao et al, 2021). LT in spring mostly occurs during the jointing to booting stages of wheat development This can have major impacts on the morphology and growth resulting in decreased spike numbers, grain numbers and the thousand-grain weight (Zheng et al, 2015). AGPase catalyzes the reaction between glucose-1-phosphate (G-1-P) and ATP to form adenosine diphosphate glucose (ADPG) and pyrophosphoric acid (PPi). This is a rate-limiting step in endosperm starch synthesis that is directly determined by the rate of starch synthesis and accumulation (Bowsher et al, 2007). The deficiency of SBE could change the morphology and structure of starch to form heterogeneous starch granules (He and Wei, 2020)
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