Abstract
While it is generally acknowledged that drought is one of the main abiotic factors affecting plant growth, how mineral nutrition is specifically and negatively affected by water deficit has received very little attention, other than being analyzed as a consequence of reduced growth. Therefore, Brassica napus plants were subjected to a gradual onset of water deficits (mild, severe, or severe extended), and leaves were analyzed at the ionomic, transcriptomic and metabolic levels. The number of Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) and of the most differentially accumulated metabolites increased from mild (525 DEGs, 57 metabolites) to severe (5454 DEGs, 78 metabolites) and severe extended (9346 DEGs, 95 metabolites) water deficit. Gene ontology enrichment analysis of the 11,747 DEGs identified revealed that ion transport was one of the most significant processes affected, even under mild water deficit, and this was also confirmed by the shift in ionomic composition (mostly micronutrients with a strong decrease in Mo, Fe, Zn, and Mn in leaves) that occurred well before growth reduction. The metabolomic data and most of the transcriptomic data suggested that well-known early leaf responses to drought such as phytohormone metabolism (ABA and JA), proline accumulation, and oxidative stress defense were induced later than repression of genes related to nutrient transport.
Highlights
Drought is one of the most important environmental factors that limit plant growth and productivity
[6], including challenge of maintaining or improving yield as well as nutritional quality the mineral content of the harvested products, requires a greater understanding of plant [6], including the mineral content of the harvested products, requires a greater understanding of plant responses to biotic stresses. This is true for Brassica napus, a cultivated species responses to biotic stresses. This is true for Brassica napus, a cultivated species with a high requirement in terms of fertilization [67,68] and whose seed quality may be with a high requirement in terms of fertilization [67,68] and whose seed quality may be impaired by deficiencies [69,70,71], heat stress [72,73], elevated CO2 [74], or drought [75]
A previous study [65] has shown in Brassica napus and Triticum aestivum that net uptake of Fe, Mn, Zn, and Mo was strongly reduced by water impaired by deficiencies [69,70,71], heat stress [72,73], elevated CO2 [74], or drought [75]
Summary
Drought is one of the most important environmental factors that limit plant growth and productivity. The main alterations have included perception and signaling cascades [22], gene expression regulation [23,24,25,26], phytohormone induction [27,28,29,30], reactive oxygen species scavenging [31,32,33], cell membrane structure modulation, osmolyte synthesis, and activation of ion channels [34,35], as well as metabolic modifications involving carbohydrates [36,37,38], amino acids and fatty acids [39,40] These modifications can result in marked accelerations in phenology, promotion of the growth and architectural modification of roots, negative impacts on shoot growth, induction of leaf rolling, and changes to stomatal density and cuticular wax content [21]. Water deficit triggers oxidative stress, which produces reactive oxygen species (ROS) and causes damage to membranes, proteins, and DNA structures
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