Comparative Metabolic Study of Two Contrasting Chinese Cabbage Genotypes under Mild and Severe Drought Stress

Abstract

Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L. ssp. pekinensis) is an important leafy vegetable crop cultivated worldwide. Drought is one of the most important limiting factors for the growth, production and quality of Chinese cabbage due to its weak drought tolerance. In order to deepen the understanding of drought stress response in Chinese cabbage, metabolomics studies were conducted in drought−tolerant (DT) and drought−susceptible (DS) genotypes of Chinese cabbage under water deficit−simulated mild and severe drought stress conditions. A total of 777 metabolites were detected, wherein 90 of them were proposed as the drought−responsive metabolites in Chinese cabbage, with abscisic acid (ABA), serine, choline alfoscerate, and sphingosine as potential representative drought stress biomarkers. We also found that drought−tolerant and drought−susceptible genotypes showed differential metabolic accumulation patterns with contrasting drought response mechanisms. Notably, constitutively high levels of ABA and glutathione were detected in drought−tolerant genotype in all tested and control conditions. In addition, proline, sucrose, γ−aminobutyric acid, and glutathione were also found to be highly correlated to drought tolerance. This study is the first metabolomic study on how Chinese cabbage responds to drought stress, and could provide insights on how to develop and cultivate new drought−resistant varieties.

Genome-wide identification of the AlkB homologs gene family, PagALKBH9B and PagALKBH10B regulated salt stress response in Populus

“…P5C5 has been shown to regulate proline synthesis ( Kubala et al, 2015 ) and the expression abundance of P5C5 lower in overexpression transgenic plants and m 6 A enrichment level was no significant difference ( Supplementary Figure S6 ). Proline is a key marker for drought stress response in plants ( Chen et al, 2022 ), so we compared the drought resistance between WT and transgenic lines. The results showed that overexpression of PagALKBH9B and PagALKBH10B increased the sensitivity of transgenic lines to drought stress ( Supplementary Figure S7A ).…”

Transcriptome and Metabolome Analyses Reveal Complex Molecular Mechanisms Involved in the Salt Tolerance of Rice Induced by Exogenous Allantoin

“…Serine is essential for the cell proliferation necessary for plant growth and development [ 66 ]. Dehydroascorbic acid participates in the regulation of ROS homeostasis during plant responses to abiotic stresses [ 67 ], whereas choline alfoscerate is a potential biomarker of abiotic stress responses [ 68 ] while also serving as an important nutrient source [ 69 ]. These enriched gene-metabolite networks may have crucial functions that contribute to the allantoin-mediated salt stress tolerance of rice.…”

Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Analyses Reveal the Response to Short-Term Drought Stress in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

“…The high sensitivity, throughput, wide coverage, and fast separation capabilities of metabolomics analyses have led to their widespread use in plant research. Metabolomic analyses have identified key metabolites in tomato [36], cabbage [37], and crops in the Triticeae family [38][39][40].…”