Deciphering Molecular Mechanisms Involved in Salinity Tolerance in Guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.) Using Transcriptome Analyses

Abstract

Guar is a commercially important legume crop known for guar gum. Guar is tolerant to various abiotic stresses, but the mechanisms involved in its salinity tolerance are not well established. This study aimed to understand molecular mechanisms of salinity tolerance in guar. RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was employed to study the leaf and root transcriptomes of salt-tolerant (Matador) and salt-sensitive (PI 340261) guar genotypes under control and salinity. Our analyses identified a total of 296,114 unigenes assembled from 527 million clean reads. Transcriptome analysis revealed that the gene expression differences were more pronounced between salinity treatments than between genotypes. Differentially expressed genes associated with stress-signaling pathways, transporters, chromatin remodeling, microRNA biogenesis, and translational machinery play critical roles in guar salinity tolerance. Genes associated with several transporter families that were differentially expressed during salinity included ABC, MFS, GPH, and P-ATPase. Furthermore, genes encoding transcription factors/regulators belonging to several families, including SNF2, C2H2, bHLH, C3H, and MYB were differentially expressed in response to salinity. This study revealed the importance of various biological pathways during salinity stress and identified several candidate genes that may be used to develop salt-tolerant guar genotypes that might be suitable for cultivation in marginal soils with moderate to high salinity or using degraded water.

A first look at sea-lavenders genomics – can genome wide SNP information tip the scales of controversy in the Limonium vulgare species complex?

“…Locus 46,709 (GBRK01023424.1) was matched to an “MFS transporter superfamily” protein. These are known to play important roles as transport proteins, essential for the movement of a wide range of substrates across biomembranes [ 41 ], and are known to be linked to salinity tolerance in plants [ 42 ].…”

Salinity responses in 24 guar genotypes are linked to multigenic regulation explaining the complexity of tolerance mechanisms in planta

“…Transporters play crucial roles in salinity tolerance in guar (Acharya et al., 2022; Tanwar et al., 2017). The comparisons of selected genes involved in Na + and Cl − transport displayed some striking differences among genotypes varying in salinity tolerance.…”

In silico Identification of miRNAs and Their Targets in Cluster Bean for Their Role in Development and Physiological Responses

“…Despite, high industrial importance of the guar gum this crop is considered as orphan as little progress has been made and availability of genetic and genomic resources is very limited in this crop ( Ravelombola et al, 2021 ). Recently, advanced molecular and genomic approaches have been utilized in this orphan crop to combat the yield losses and elucidate the function of galactomannan related genes ( Al-Qurainy et al, 2019 ; Kumar et al, 2020 ; Rajaprakasam et al, 2021 ; Grigoreva et al, 2021a ; Grigoreva et al, 2021b ; Acharya et al, 2022 ). Attempts have also been made to sequence cluster bean genome ( Grigoreva et al, 2019 ); however, this first sequencing attempt has a gap of 50% ( Grigoreva et al, 2019 ).…”