Identification of Differential Drought Response Mechanisms in Medicago sativa subsp. sativa and falcata through Comparative Assessments at the Physiological, Biochemical, and Transcriptional Levels

Plants

Bin Shan¹  Guanqun Chen¹  Madeline Lehmann²  Kazi Kader²  Stacy D. Singer²  Rodrigo Ortega Polo²  Surya Acharya²  Kimberley Burton Hughes²  Udaya Subedi²  Timothy Schwinghamer²  Gaganpreet Kaur Dhariwal²  Biruk A. Feyissa³  Abdelali Hannoufa³ 

[1] Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2P5, Canada;Lethbridge Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge, AB T1J 4B1, Canada;London Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, London, ON N5V 4T3, Canada;

关键词: alfalfa;    differential gene expression;    drought tolerance;    forage;    stress response;   

DOI  :  10.3390/plants10102107

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is an extensively grown perennial forage legume, and although it is relatively drought tolerant, it consumes high amounts of water and depends upon irrigation in many regions. Given the progressive decline in water available for irrigation, as well as an escalation in climate change-related droughts, there is a critical need to develop alfalfa cultivars with improved drought resilience. M. sativa subsp. falcata is a close relative of the predominantly cultivated M. sativa subsp. sativa, and certain accessions have been demonstrated to exhibit superior performance under drought. As such, we endeavoured to carry out comparative physiological, biochemical, and transcriptomic evaluations of an as of yet unstudied drought-tolerant M. sativa subsp. falcata accession (PI 641381) and a relatively drought-susceptible M. sativa subsp. sativa cultivar (Beaver) to increase our understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind the enhanced ability of falcata to withstand water deficiency. Our findings indicate that unlike the small number of falcata genotypes assessed previously, falcata PI 641381 may exploit smaller, thicker leaves, as well as an increase in the baseline transcriptional levels of genes encoding particular transcription factors, protective proteins, and enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of stress-related compounds. These findings imply that different falcata accessions/genotypes may employ distinct drought response mechanisms, and the study provides a suite of candidate genes to facilitate the breeding of alfalfa with enhanced drought resilience in the future.

【 授权许可】

Unknown