Integrative Analysis of Transcriptome and Metabolome Reveals Salt Stress Orchestrating the Accumulation of Specialized Metabolites in Lycium barbarum L. Fruit

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Biao A¹  Tianshun Yang¹  Shuang Lin¹  Xiaoman Yang¹  Shaohua Zeng¹  Ying Wang¹  Guoqi Zheng²  Guilian Mao² 

[1] Key Laboratory of South China Agricultural Plant Molecular Analysis and Genetic Improvement, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Botany, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China;School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China;

关键词: Lycium barbarum L.;    salt stress;    fruit quality;    carotenoids;    flavonoids;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms22094414

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Salt stress seriously affects yield and quality of crops. The fruit of Lycium barbarum (LBF) is extensively used as functional food due to its rich nutrient components. It remains unclear how salt stress influences the quality of LBF. In this study, we identified 71 differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) and 1396 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) among ripe LBF with and without 300 mM of NaCl treatment. Pearson correlation analysis indicated that the metabolomic changes caused by salt stress were strongly related to oxidoreductases; hydrolases; and modifying enzymes, in particular, acyltransferases, methyltransferases and glycosyltransferases. Further analysis revealed that salt stress facilitated flavonoid glycosylation and carotenoid esterification by boosting the expression of structural genes in the biosynthetic pathways. These results suggested that salt stress prompts the modification of flavonoids and carotenoids to alleviate ROS damage, which in turn improves the quality of LBF. Our results lay a solid foundation for uncovering the underlying molecular mechanism of salt stress orchestrating LBF quality, and the candidate genes identified will be a valuable gene resource for genetic improvement of L. barbarum.

【 授权许可】

Unknown