Multiomics Analyses of Two Sorghum Cultivars Reveal the Molecular Mechanism of Salt Tolerance

Abstract

Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is one of the most important cereal crops and contains many health-promoting substances. Sorghum has high tolerance to abiotic stress and contains a variety of flavonoids compounds. Flavonoids are produced by the phenylpropanoid pathway and performed a wide range of functions in plants resistance to biotic and abiotic stress. A multiomics analysis of two sorghum cultivars (HN and GZ) under different salt treatments time (0, 24, 48, and 72) was performed. A total of 45 genes, 58 secondary metabolites, and 246 proteins were recognized with significant differential abundances in different comparison models. The common differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were allocated to the “flavonoid biosynthesis” and “phenylpropanoid biosynthesis” pathways. The most enriched pathways of the common differentially accumulating metabolites (DAMs) were “flavonoid biosynthesis,” followed by “phenylpropanoid biosynthesis” and “arginine and proline metabolism.” The common differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were mainly distributed in “phenylpropanoid biosynthesis,” “biosynthesis of cofactors,” and “RNA transport.” Furthermore, considerable differences were observed in the accumulation of low molecular weight nonenzymatic antioxidants and the activity of antioxidant enzymes. Collectively, the results of our study support the idea that flavonoid biological pathways may play an important physiological role in the ability of sorghum to withstand salt stress.

Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of the U-box E3 ubiquitin ligase gene family related to salt tolerance in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.)

“…Cis-acting element analysis indicated that PUB genes might participate in diverse biological processes, especially in response to salt stress. Flavonoid biosynthesis was the major pathway of sorghum salt tolerance in our previous study, while MYB-binding elements are important regulators of avonoid biosynthetic genes in plants [33,54]. We found 12 SbPUB genes contained the MYB-related elements, which also exhibited diverse levels of expression in the proteomic analysis.…”

“…Several studies have found that the PUB gene family is involved in salt tolerance. To explore the functions of the PUB gene family in sorghum, we detected the expression levels of SbPUBs based on the salt tolerant proteomic data for two sorghum cultivars obtained in our previous study; we found that the pathways of avonoid biosynthesis and ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis may play important physiological roles in sorghum salt tolerance [33]. Based on the proteomic results, 18 differentially expressed PUB family genes, belonging to different subfamilies, were identi ed as having clearly differential expression (Fig.…”

“…Sorghum is a model system for studying crop salt response because of its inherent tolerance to salt stress. Based on the analysis of multi-omics data, it was determined that avonoid biological pathways play a vital role in the salt tolerance of sorghum [33]. Moreover, ubiquitin mediated proteolysis was found among the top Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways of sorghum salt tolerance.…”

Integration of transcriptome and metabolome analyses reveals sorghum roots responding to cadmium stress through regulation of the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway

“…Total RNA was extracted using the NEBNext ® UltraTM RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina ® (NEB, USA) following manufacturer's recommendations. The purity, concentration and integrity of RNA were assessed using a NanoPhotometer ® spectrophotometer (IMPLEN, CA, USA), Qubit ® RNA Assay Kit in Qubit ® 2.0 Flurometer (Life Technologies, CA, USA) and RNA Nano 6000 Assay Kit of the Bioanalyzer 2100 system (Agilent Technologies, CA, USA), respectively (Ren et al, 2022). One mg high quality RNA per sample was then used to construct the cDNA library, and was sequenced using an Illumina HiSeq sequencing platform by Metware Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (Wuhan, China).…”

“…The samples described above were also used in the metabolomics analysis. The extract analysis, and the identification and quantification of metabolites were performed by MetWare (Wuhan, China) using standard procedures and based on a previously published protocol (Sun et al, 2020;Ren et al, 2022). Briefly, the freeze-dried roots were crushed using a grinder (MM 400, Retsch) at 30Hz for 1.5 min.…”