Identifying Signal‐Crosstalk Mechanism in Maize Plants during Combined Salinity and Boron Stress Using Integrative Systems Biology Approaches

Abstract

Combined stress has been seen as a major threat to world agriculture production. Maize is one of the leading cereal crops of the world due to its wide spectrum of growth conditions and is moderately sensitive to salt stress. A saline soil environment is a major factor that hinders its growth and overall yield and causes an increase in the concentration of micronutrients like boron, leading to excess over the requirement of the plant. Boron toxicity combined with salinity has been reported to be a serious threat to the yield and quality of maize. The response signatures of the maize plants to the combined effect of salinity and boron stress have not been studied well. We carried out an integrative systems-level analysis of the publicly available transcriptomic data generated on tolerant maize (Lluteño maize from the Atacama Desert, Chile) landrace under combined salt and boron stress. We identified significant biological processes that are differentially regulated in combined salt and boron stress in the leaves and roots of maize, respectively. Protein-protein interaction network analysis identified important roles of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), galactinol synthase 2 (GOLS2) proteins of leaf and proteolipid membrane potential regulator (pmpm4), metallothionein lea protein group 3 (mlg3), and cold regulated 410 (COR410) proteins of root in salt tolerance and regulating boron toxicity in maize. Identification of transcription factors coupled with regulatory network analysis using machine learning approach identified a few heat shock factors (HSFs) and NAC (NAM (no apical meristem, Petunia), ATAF1–2 (Arabidopsis thaliana activating factor), and CUC2 (cup-shaped cotyledon, Arabidopsis)) family transcription factors (TFs) to play crucial roles in salt tolerance, maintaining reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels and minimizing oxidative damage to the cells. These findings will provide new ways to design targeted functional validation experiments for developing multistress-resistant maize crops.

Residual efficiency of iron-nanoparticles and different iron sources on growth, and antioxidants in maize plants under salts stress: life cycle study

“…Maize is known to be a moderately sensitive cereal crop to salinity (with a threshold salinity of 5 dS/m) which is a major environmental constraint hindering maize production with a grain loss of about 11% [ 8 , 26 ]. Germination rate and growth characteristics may be hindered by the hyperosmotic stress conditions induced by salinity leading to reduced overall yield [ 27 ].…”

Maize heat shock proteins—prospection, validation, categorization and in silico analysis of the different ZmHSP families

“…Recently, it has been found that their expression were induced by silicon (Khan et al 2020 ), ascorbic acid exogenous application (Elkelish et al 2020 ), excessive light and UV-rays (Kim et al 2021 b ), as well as by the humic acid levels raise on soil (Cha et al 2020 ). Furthermore, they are regulated by a series of transcription factors (TFs) (Barua et al 2022 ). In some cereals, the expression was also increased in thermo-conditioning processes (Kushawaha et al 2021 ) and after exposure to thermal, water or saline stress, beyond the heavy metals accumulation (Chaudhary et al 2019 ).…”