Abstract
Drought stress is a bottleneck factor for plant growth and development, especially in epiphytic orchids that absorb moisture mainly from the air. Recent studies have suggested that there are complex transcriptional regulatory networks related to drought stress in Dendrobium sinense. In this study, the transcription and metabolite alterations involved in drought stress response in D. sinense were investigated through RNA-seq and metabolomics. A total of 856 metabolites were identified from stressed and control samples, with 391 metabolites showing significant differences. With PacBio and Illumina RNA sequencing, 72,969 genes were obtained with a mean length of 2,486 bp, and 622 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. Correlation analysis showed 7 differential genes, and 39 differential metabolites were involved in interaction networks. The network analysis of differential genes and metabolites suggested that the pathways of purine metabolism and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis may play an important role in drought response in D. sinense. These results provide new insights and reference data for culturally important medicinal plants and the protection of endangered orchids.
Highlights
Through evolutionary processes, a series of response mechanisms has developed in plants that allow for chemical, physiological, and developmental responses to changes in the external environment (Claeys and Inze, 2013)
In order to explore the physiological mechanism of D. sinense response to drought stress, three treated experiments were conducted with different relative humidity (RH) gradients sustained for 7 days
The results showed that the activity of protective enzymes in D. sinense was increased, and the scavenging ability of reactive oxygen species was enhanced after drought stress
Summary
A series of response mechanisms has developed in plants that allow for chemical, physiological, and developmental responses to changes in the external environment (Claeys and Inze, 2013). Drought is one abiotic factor that strongly affects plant growth and development (Singh and Laxmi, 2015; Zhu, 2016). Several studies have elucidated important genes involved in drought stress response, mainly by studying gene expression patterns of droughtstressed plants (Joshi et al, 2016). Drought resistance in Triticum aestivum can be improved by TaFBA overexpression that affects the accumulation of sucrose and starch (Zhou et al, 2014). Transgenic Arabidopsis plants expressing CsALDH12A1 showed enhanced tolerance to drought stress during
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