Transcriptome analyses of quinoa leaves revealed critical function of epidermal bladder cells in salt stress acclimation
Ali Kiani-Pouya,
Leiting Li,
Fatemeh Rasouli,
Zheting Zhang,
Jiahong Chen,
Min Yu,
Ayesha Tahir,
Rainer Hedrich,
Sergey Shabala,
Heng Zhang
Affiliations
Ali Kiani-Pouya
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Plant Genetics, Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, College of Science and Engineering, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
Leiting Li
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Plant Genetics, Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
Fatemeh Rasouli
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Plant Genetics, Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, College of Science and Engineering, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia; International Research Centre for Environmental Membrane Biology, Foshan University, Foshan, China
Zheting Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Plant Genetics, Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Jiahong Chen
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Plant Genetics, Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Min Yu
International Research Centre for Environmental Membrane Biology, Foshan University, Foshan, China
Ayesha Tahir
Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Park Road, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
Rainer Hedrich
Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology and Biophysics, University Wuerzburg, D-97070 Wuerzburg, Germany
Sergey Shabala
Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, College of Science and Engineering, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia; International Research Centre for Environmental Membrane Biology, Foshan University, Foshan, China; Corresponding authors.
Heng Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Plant Genetics, Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; Corresponding authors.
The ability of some halophytic plants such as Chenopodium quinoa to sequester large quantities of salt into epidermal bladder cell (EBC) is considered as one of the traits conferring their salinity stress resilience. In the current study, we used mRNA-seq to characterize transcriptome differences between intact and EBC-free quinoa leaves from plants that were treated with 400 mM NaCl for 4 weeks. Employing K-means clustering on differentially expressed genes identified clusters of genes showing distinct expression patterns, indicating significant differences between quinoa leaves with or without EBCs in response to salt stress. EBC-free leaves retained most transcriptome responses to salt stress as normal intact leaves. However, specific processes such as increased DNA replication activity failed to be induced in EBC-free leaves. This correlated with reduced expression of many immune response-related genes and increased expression of multiple phytohormone signaling components. These results revealed that EBCs play a critical role in salt stress acclimation of quinoa leaves and provided important candidate genes for further mechanistic studies.
