Expression partitioning of homeologs and tandem duplications contribute to salt tolerance in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

• DOI: 10.1038/srep21476
• Publication Date: 2016-02-19T12:31:09Z
• Authors: Yumei Zhang; Zhenshan Liu; Abul Awlad Khan; Qi Lin; Yao Han; Ping Mu; Yiguo Liu; Hongsheng Zhang; Lingyan Li; Xianghao Meng; Zhongfu Ni; Mingming Xin
• Keywords: Tandem

Abstract Salt stress dramatically reduces crop yield and quality, but the molecular mechanisms underlying salt tolerance remain largely unknown. To explore wheat transcriptional response to stress, we performed high-throughput transcriptome sequencing of 10-day old roots under normal condition 6, 12, 24 48 h after (HASS) in both a salt-tolerant cultivar salt-sensitive cultivar. The results demonstrated global gene expression reprogramming with 36,804 genes that were up- or down-regulated at least one compared controls revealed specificity complexity functional pathways between two cultivars. Further analysis showed substantial partitioning homeologous occurs when plants are subjected accounting for approximately 63.9% (2,537) 66.1% (2,624) ‘Chinese Spring’ (CS) ‘Qing Mai 6’ (QM). Interestingly, 143 salt-responsive have been duplicated tandemly arrayed on chromosomes during evolution polyploidization events patterns 122 (122/143, 85.3%) tandem duplications diverged dynamically over time-course salinity exposure. In addition, constitutive silencing target Arabidopsis further confirmed our high-confidence stress-responsive candidates.