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Expression Profile of Early Responsive Genes Under Salt Stress in Upland Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.)

Plant Molecular Biology Reporter volume 29, pages 626–637 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

Cotton (Gossypium spp.) is an important fiber and oil crop. High soil salinity affects cotton growth and production severely. To identify genes in response to salt stress and clarify salt tolerance mechanism in cotton, suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) libraries were constructed from cotton roots under salt stress. A total of 1,131 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from both forward and reverse libraries were assembled into 468 uniESTs and grouped into 11 functional categories according to Gene Ontology prediction. The results showed that many physiological processes of cotton were influenced by salt stress. Some signaling elements and transcription factors, which might play important roles in salt stress response, were carefully discussed. The expression patterns of 21 selected genes under salt stress were validated by parallel method semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (semi-quantitative RT-PCR), which were consistent with SSH results. An interaction network of salt-responsive genes was constructed and three molecular regulatory pathways of cotton were deduced. Our findings might result in further understanding of salt stress response in cotton and contribute to genetically modified cotton with enhanced salt tolerance.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Yi Huang from the Plant Biotechnology Institute, National Research Council Canada for suggestions and revision on the manuscript, and Dr. Kunbo Wang from the Cotton Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences for providing us seeds of “Zhong G5”. We are also grateful to Ms. Xiaoyan Guo for assistance on sequence blast analysis. This study was supported by China National “863” Project to J. Hua (2006AA10A108), Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University to J. Hua (NCET-06-0106), and in part by grants from Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University, Programme of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (111-2-03).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China

    Xi Zhang, Junbo Zhen, Zhaohu Li, Dingming Kang, Youming Yang, Jin Kong & Jinping Hua

  2. Key Laboratory of Crop Heterosis and Utilization, Ministry of Education, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China

    Xi Zhang, Dingming Kang & Jinping Hua

  3. Beijing Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China

    Junbo Zhen & Jinping Hua

  4. Key Laboratory of Crop Genomics and Genetic Improvement, Ministry of Agriculture, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China

    Jinping Hua

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  1. Xi Zhang
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  2. Junbo Zhen
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  3. Zhaohu Li
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Correspondence to Jin Kong or Jinping Hua.

Electronic Supplementary Material

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Online Resource 1

Information of 468 uniESTs from forward and reverse SSH libraries (DOC 709 kb)

Online Resource 2

Ca2+ sensors and calmodulin-binding proteins identified in forward and reverse SSH libraries (DOC 44 kb)

Online Resource 3

Gene homologs of uniESTs in Arabidopsis in the interaction network (DOC 191 kb)

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Zhang, X., Zhen, J., Li, Z. et al. Expression Profile of Early Responsive Genes Under Salt Stress in Upland Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.). Plant Mol Biol Rep 29, 626–637 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-010-0269-y

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Keywords

  • Cotton
  • Suppression subtractive hybridization
  • Early salt response
  • Signaling
  • Interaction network