Comparative metabolite profiling of drought stress in roots and leaves of seven Triticeae species

Abstract

BackgroundDrought is a lifestyle disease. Plant metabolomics has been exercised for understanding the fine-tuning of the potential pathways to surmount the adverse effects of drought stress. A broad spectrum of morphological and metabolic responses from seven Triticeae species including wild types with different drought tolerance/susceptibility level was investigated under control and water scarcity conditions.ResultsSignificant morphological parameters measured were root length, surface area, average root diameter and overall root development. Principal Component Analysis, Partial Least-Squares-Discriminant Analysis and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis were applied to the metabolomic data obtained by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry technique in order to determine the important metabolites of the drought tolerance across seven different Triticeae species. The metabolites showing significant accumulation under the drought stress were considered as the key metabolites and correlated with potential biochemical pathways, enzymes or gene locations for a better understanding of the tolerance mechanisms. In all tested species, 45 significantly active metabolites with possible roles in drought stress were identified. Twenty-one metabolites out of forty-five including sugars, amino acids, organic acids and low molecular weight compounds increased in both leaf and root samples of TR39477, IG132864 and Bolal under the drought stress, contrasting to TTD-22, Tosunbey, Ligustica and Meyeri samples. Three metabolites including succinate, aspartate and trehalose were selected for further genome analysis due to their increased levels in TR39477, IG132864, and Bolal upon drought stress treatment as well as their significant role in energy producing biochemical pathways.ConclusionThese results demonstrated that the genotypes with high drought tolerance skills, especially wild emmer wheat, have a great potential to be a genetic model system for experiments aiming to validate metabolomics–genomics networks.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-017-4321-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Role of light‐intensity‐dependent changes in thiol and amino acid metabolism in the adaptation of wheat to drought

“…Similar to the two studied wheat cultivars (Figure 4), drought also induced an increase in Asp and Asn content of several Triticeae species grown under controlled conditions (Ullah, Yüce, Gökçe, & Budak, 2017). A relationship between the drought-induced increase in Asn content and sensitivity to drought was also found by comparison of peanut genotypes with different sensitivity (Furlan et al, 2017).…”

CRISPR/Cas9-Induced Mutagenesis of Semi-Rolled Leaf1,2 Confers Curled Leaf Phenotype and Drought Tolerance by Influencing Protein Expression Patterns and ROS Scavenging in Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

“…The KEGG analysis showed that up-and downregulated proteins were mostly enriched in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, metabolic pathways, and carbon metabolism. Metabolic responses play a significant role in drought stress within a variety of plant species, and different metabolic adjustments were observed under water-deficit stress [39][40][41]. Secondary metabolites, such as phenolic acid and flavonoids, described as markers of abiotic and biotic stress tolerance, are ubiquitous in the plant kingdom [42].…”

Metabolomics and proteomics reveal drought-stress responses of leaf tissues from spring-wheat

“…common ( Triticum aestivum ) and durum ( Triticum durum ) wheat, barley ( Hordeum vulgare ), maize ( Zea mays ) and rice ( Oryza sativa ). Proteomics has been extensively applied to study drought responsive pathways in leaves of such plants 8 – 22 , whereas investigations on metabolic adjustments are still limited 22 – 28 .…”