Water-saving and water-spending strategy: The physiological, proteomic and metabolomic investigation of wheat response to drought and the following recovery

Abstract

Drought as water deficit in the soil represents the most commonly occurring and the most variable environmental stress factor worldwide. Plants have evolved various strategies to cope with drought stress in relation to their other needs such as the necessity to supply carbon in plants with a C3 type of photosynthetic assimilation. In the present study, two wheat cultivars, Baletka and Tobak, representing two contrasting water management strategies, were studied at physiological, proteomic and metabolomic levels to provide a complex view on their phenotypic responses to drought treatment and subsequent recovery. Physiological characteristics clearly distinguished Baletka and Tobak and, moreover, in water-saving Baletka, both proteomics and metabolomics analyses revealed significant remodelling of cell wall, changes in endocytosis and cell signalling, and, especially, changes in synthesis of other defence proteins and LTI65kDa protein (also known as RD29B protein) which has been detected in wheat for the first time. LEA1 protein was proposed as a component of drought stress memory in Baletka. An amazing finding was the enhanced accumulation of oxalate oxidase implying enhanced oxalate oxidase activity leading to faster degradation of oxalate with the simultaneous gain of two molecules of CO2 which may represent an alternative source of CO2 for C3 plants exposed to drought stress.

Keywords

• drought stress
• recovery
• water regime
• omics response
• wheat