Abstract
In a changing climate, extreme weather events such as heatwaves will be more frequent and could affect grain weight and the quality of crops such as wheat, one of the most significant crops in terms of global food security. In this work, we characterized the response of Triticum turgidum L. spp. durum wheat to short-term heat stress (HS) treatment at transcriptomic and physiological levels during early grain filling in glasshouse experiments. We found a significant reduction in grain weight (23.9%) and grain dimensions from HS treatment. Grain quality was also affected, showing a decrease in starch content (20.8%), in addition to increments in grain protein levels (14.6%), with respect to the control condition. Moreover, RNA-seq analysis of durum wheat grains allowed us to identify 1590 differentially expressed genes related to photosynthesis, response to heat, and carbohydrate metabolic process. A gene regulatory network analysis of HS-responsive genes uncovered novel transcription factors (TFs) controlling the expression of genes involved in abiotic stress response and grain quality, such as a member of the DOF family predicted to regulate glycogen and starch biosynthetic processes in response to HS in grains. In summary, our results provide new insights into the extensive transcriptome reprogramming that occurs during short-term HS in durum wheat grains.
Highlights
The major challenges that global agriculture is facing are the rise in food demand from the increasing population and climate change
We found that a short-term HS during early grain filling (GF) significantly affects grain weight and quality, and the initial response of grain to HS is characterized by the induction of chaperones, together with the inhibition of genes related to proteolysis and transcription regulation
One hundred pots with three seeds of tetraploid durum wheat each were sown at the end of January 2016 and grew under ambient open-door condition until the end of March 2016, when daily mean temperatures dropped below 20 ◦C in the Experimental Station of the Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia (39◦47 S, 73◦14 W, 19 m asl), Chile
Summary
The major challenges that global agriculture is facing are the rise in food demand from the increasing population and climate change. In this context, crop yields should increase ~60% by 2050 to maintain the global food supply, but at the same time, a reduction in the global cultivated area is expected because of the decrease in rainfall and the temperature increase [1,2,3]. Heat waves will negatively impact different cropping systems as high temperatures for short periods have the potential to significantly reduce staple food crop production and affect its quality [5]. The most heat-susceptible phase in crops is the reproductive period [8,9,10]
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