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Real-time kinetics of cadmium transport and transcriptomic analysis in low cadmium accumulator Miscanthus sacchariflorus

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Main conclusion

The molecular mechanism of low Cd influxes and accumulation in Miscanthus sacchariflorus is revealed by RNA sequencing technique.

Soil cadmium (Cd) pollution has posed a serious threat to our soil quality and food security as well as to human health. Some wild plants exhibit high tolerance to heavy metals stress. However, mechanisms of Cd tolerance of wild plants remain to be fully clarified. In this study, we found that two Miscanthus species, Miscanthus (M.) sacchariflorus and M. floridulus, showed different Cd-tolerant mechanisms. M. sacchariflorus accumulated less Cd in both root and leaf by limiting Cd uptake from root and showed superior Cd tolerance, while M. floridulus not only absorbs more Cd from root but also transports more Cd to shoot. To investigate the molecular mechanism of different Cd uptake patterns in the two Miscanthus species, we analyzed the transcriptome of M. sacchariflorus and identified transcriptional changes in response to Cd in roots by high-throughput RNA-sequencing technology. A total of 92,985 unigenes were obtained from M. sacchariflorus root cDNA samples. Based on the assembled de novo transcriptome, 681 DEGs which included 345 upregulated and 336 downregulated genes were detected between two libraries of untreated and Cd-treated roots. Gene ontology (GO) and pathway enrichment analysis revealed that upregulated DEGs under Cd stress are predominately involved in metabolic pathway, starch and sucrose and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites and metal ion transporters. Quantitative RT-PCR was employed to compare the expression levels of some metal transport genes in roots of two Miscanthus species, and the genes involved in Cd uptake from root and transfer from root to shoot were extremely different. The results not only enrich genomic resource but also help to better understand the molecular mechanisms of Cd accumulation and tolerance in wild plants.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Guoping Zhang for the microelectrode ion flux estimation (MIFE) technique support. We also thank Dr. Shafiqur Rahman for assistance in improving the written English. This work was supported by the National Science and Technology Support Plan of China (Grant no. 2012BAC09B01) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 31371591, 31571577).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Haipeng Guo, Mengzhu Xiao, Houming Chen & Dean Jiang

  2. Academy of Agricultural Sciences of Ningbo, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China

    Chuntao Hong

  3. Nurturing Station for the State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, Zhejiang A & F University, Hangzhou, China

    Haipeng Guo, Xiaomin Chen & Bingsong Zheng

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  1. Haipeng Guo
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  4. Xiaomin Chen
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  6. Bingsong Zheng
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Correspondence to Bingsong Zheng or Dean Jiang.

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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 664 kb)

425_2016_2578_MOESM2_ESM.doc

Table S1 List of primers used for qRT-PCR. The fold change of expression is the gene expression level in Cd treatment normalized to that in control (DOC 64 kb)

Table S2 The upregulated DEGs of M. sacchariflorus under Cd stress (XLS 71 kb)

Table S3 The downregulated DEGs of M. sacchariflorus under Cd stress (XLS 59 kb)

425_2016_2578_MOESM5_ESM.doc

Table S4 Validation of RNA-seq results by qRT-PCR. The fold change of expression is the gene expression level in Cd treatment normalized to that in control. Annotation of each contig is listed in Table S1. Data are mean ± SD (n = 3). Different asterisks indicate a significant difference at p < 0.05 (DOC 33 kb)

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Guo, H., Hong, C., Xiao, M. et al. Real-time kinetics of cadmium transport and transcriptomic analysis in low cadmium accumulator Miscanthus sacchariflorus . Planta 244, 1289–1302 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-016-2578-3

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