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Comparative transcriptome analysis of two maize genotypes with different tolerance to salt stress

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Abstract

A better understanding of the molecular effects of salinity stress is key to improving salt tolerance in Zea mays. In this study, we combined phenotyping with transcript profiling to study genotype-specific differences in salt tolerance in Zea mays. An extensive phenotypic screening identified two genotypes with extreme phenotypic differences in tolerance toward salt stress. De novo RNA-seq analysis of the selected salt-tolerant (R9) and salt-sensitive (S46) genotype was performed to unveil the molecular mechanisms underlying the differences in salt tolerance between the two genotypes. A number of 5884 and 5556 unique transcripts were identified that were uniquely expressed in the R9 and S46 genotypes, respectively. GO enrichment showed that processes such as cellular response to calcium ion, and regulation of secondary metabolites biosynthesis has been highly diverged between the two genotypes at the transcriptome level. Comparing salt treated with control samples for each genotype showed enrichment for salt tolerance related mechanisms, i.e., potassium ion transport and cation/ion transmembrane transport, in the tolerant genotype only. We hypothesized that more efficient potassium uptake and different response to calcium ions can contribute to better ionic hemostasis and subsequently more salt tolerance for the R9 genotype.

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Data availability

The RNA-seq data has been deposited to the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Sequence Read Archive (SRA) under the submission name: SRP273987.

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Funding

The research was funded by the Office of Vice Chancellor for Research, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran, (Project No. 94/101/T.T) and by Grants of the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek-Vlaanderen (FWO, Belgium) [3G046318, G.0371.06, 3G045620]. Razgar Seyed Rahmani holds a personal grant of the Ministry of Science Research and Technology, Iran.

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Author notes

  1. Taher Mohasseli and Razgar Seyed Rahmani have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran

    Taher Mohasseli & Sara Dezhsetan

  2. Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Razgar Seyed Rahmani & Kathleen Marchal

  3. Department of Information Technology, IDLab, imec, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Razgar Seyed Rahmani & Kathleen Marchal

  4. Department of Plant Production and Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

    Reza Darvishzadeh

  5. Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Kathleen Marchal

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  1. Taher Mohasseli
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Reza Darvishzadeh or Kathleen Marchal.

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Additional information

Communicated by J. Zimny.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file 1

(DOCX 2404 KB). Supplementary figures and tables.

Supplementary file 2

(FASTA 88990 KB). The assembled transcripts for the R9 (tolerant) genotype in fasta format.

Supplementary file 3

(FASTA 88576 KB). The assembled transcripts for the S46 (sensitive) genotype in fasta format.

Supplementary file 4

(XLSX 98 KB). The lists of uniquely expressed transcripts in the R9 and S46 genotypes.

Supplementary file 5

(XLSX 4813 KB). Differentially expressed transcript results for the R9 and S46 geontypes.

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Mohasseli, T., Seyed Rahmani, R., Darvishzadeh, R. et al. Comparative transcriptome analysis of two maize genotypes with different tolerance to salt stress. CEREAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS 50, 797–810 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42976-022-00271-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42976-022-00271-4

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