Abstract
BackgroundRice yield and quality are adversely affected by high temperatures, especially at night; high nighttime temperatures are more harmful to grain weight than high daytime temperatures. Unfortunately, global temperatures are consistently increasing at an alarming rate and the minimum nighttime temperature has increased three times as much as the corresponding maximum daytime temperature over the past few decades.ResultsWe analyzed the transcriptome profiles for rice grain from heat-tolerant and -sensitive lines in response to high night temperatures at the early milky stage using the Illumina Sequencing method. The analysis results for the sequencing data indicated that 35 transcripts showed different expressions between heat-tolerant and -sensitive rice, and RT-qPCR analyses confirmed the expression patterns of selected transcripts. Functional analysis of the differentially expressed transcripts indicated that 21 genes have functional annotation and their functions are mainly involved in oxidation-reduction (6 genes), metabolic (7 genes), transport (4 genes), transcript regulation (2 genes), defense response (1 gene) and photosynthetic (1 gene) processes. Based on the functional annotation of the differentially expressed genes, the possible process that regulates these differentially expressed transcripts in rice grain responding to high night temperature stress at the early milky stage was further analyzed. This analysis indicated that high night temperature stress disrupts electron transport in the mitochondria, which leads to changes in the concentration of hydrogen ions in the mitochondrial and cellular matrix and influences the activity of enzymes involved in TCA and its secondary metabolism in plant cells.ConclusionsUsing Illumina sequencing technology, the differences between the transcriptomes of heat-tolerant and -sensitive rice lines in response to high night temperature stress at the early milky stage was described here for the first time. The candidate transcripts may provide genetic resources that may be useful in the improvement of heat-tolerant characters of rice. The model proposed here is based on differences in expression and transcription between two rice lines. In addition, the model may support future studies on the molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses to high night temperatures.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1222-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Rice yield and quality are adversely affected by high temperatures, especially at night; high nighttime temperatures are more harmful to grain weight than high daytime temperatures
Rice grains were exposed to high night temperatures at the early milky stage, followed by normal growth conditions until maturity, and the grain plumpness of the heat-tolerant and -sensitive lines was determined and compared
The results showed that grain plumpness of the two lines decreased after 48 h of high night temperature stress, and the decrease ratio of grain plumpness in the heatsensitive line decreased far more than in the heat-tolerant line [see Additional file 1]
Summary
Rice yield and quality are adversely affected by high temperatures, especially at night; high nighttime temperatures are more harmful to grain weight than high daytime temperatures. Global temperatures are consistently increasing at an alarming rate and the minimum nighttime temperature has increased three times as much as the corresponding maximum daytime temperature over the past few decades. The global surface temperature is rising consistently and the minimum nighttime temperature has increased approximately three times as much as the corresponding maximum daytime temperature over the past few decades [7]. Previous studies reported that the expression of cyPPDKB and BEIIb was down-regulated by high temperatures, which resulted in an increase in rice grain chalkiness, suggesting that BEIIb and cyPPDKB may be two of the candidate genes that play a critical role in grain chalkiness [6,15]
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