Transcriptome changes induced by abiotic stresses in Artemisia annua

Divya Vashisth,Vikas Kumar Patel,Ritesh Kumar,Shubhra Rastogi,Ajit Kumar Shasany,Alok Kalra,Madan Mohan Gupta,Anil Kumar Gupta

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-21598-1

Divya Vashisth, Vikas Kumar Patel + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-21598-1

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Abstract

Artemisia annua is known to be the source of artemisinin worldwide which is an antimalarial compound but is synthesised in very limited amount in the plant. Most research laid emphasis on the methods of enhancing artemisinin but our study has been planned in a way that it may simultaneously address two problems encountered by the plant. Firstly, to know the effect on the artemisinin content in the era of climate change because the secondary metabolites tend to increase under stress. Secondly, to identify some of the stress responsive genes that could help in stress tolerance of the plant under abiotic stress. Hence, the A. annua plants were subjected to four abiotic stresses (salt, cold, drought and water-logging) and it was observed that the artemisinin content increased in all the stress conditions except drought. Next, in order to identify the stress responsive genes, the transcriptome sequencing of the plants under stress was carried out resulting in 89,362 transcripts for control and 81,328, 76,337, 90,470 and 96,493 transcripts for salt, cold, drought, and water logging stresses. This investigation provides new insights for functional studies of genes involved in multiple abiotic stresses and potential candidate genes for multiple stress tolerance in A. annua.

Highlights

The stresses such as drought, salinity, chilling, freezing, water-logging, variable light conditions, nutrient starvation and heat adversely affect the plant growth and productivity[1]
A limited success has been achieved for obtaining artemisinin in vitro and we are still dependent on A. annua plants
The artemisinin content of the plant depends on many parameters including the conditions like salinity stress, water stress, chilling stress etc.[16,17,18] indicating that the stress related pathways and mechanisms somehow regulate the artemisinin biosynthesis pathway affecting the yield of artemisinin

Summary

Introduction

The stresses such as drought, salinity, chilling, freezing, water-logging, variable light conditions, nutrient starvation and heat adversely affect the plant growth and productivity[1]. The present investigation reports about the response of Artemisia annua plant against four abiotic stresses (salt, cold, drought and water-logging/flooding). The artemisinin content of the plant depends on many parameters including the conditions like salinity stress, water stress, chilling stress etc.[16,17,18] indicating that the stress related pathways and mechanisms somehow regulate the artemisinin biosynthesis pathway affecting the yield of artemisinin. The hardy nature of this plant in tolerating various abiotic stress conditions makes it a strong candidate for carrying out generation sequencing in order to explore the regulatory mechanism(s) of the artemisinin biosynthetic pathway as well as stress responsive pathways. Due to the limited transcriptomic data comparing multiple stress conditions in non-model plants, the present investigation describes the comparative analysis of A. annua leaf transcriptomes under four different stress conditions: cold, drought, salt and water-logging. The data collected in the present study will prove to be a valuable asset for genomic studies of abiotic stresses in Artemisia sp

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