Proteomic profiling of Arachis hypogaea in response to drought stress and overexpression of AhLEA2 improves drought tolerance

Abstract

Drought is the main factor restricting peanut growth, but the molecular mechanism underlying peanut drought tolerance remains unclear.• Herein, the seedling stage of drought-resistant peanut cultivar J11 was subjected to drought stress, and its proteomic profile was systematically analysed by isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ), the results of which were further complemented with our previous transcriptome results.• A total of 4,018 proteins were identified by proteomic analysis, which revealed that the expression levels of 69 proteins were altered under drought stress. Among the differentially expressed proteins (DEPs), 50 were upregulated, and 19 were downregulated. The most enriched metabolic pathways for these DEPs were those involving phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, flavonoid biosynthesis, and plant hormone signal transduction. The proteomic data and previous transcriptome results revealed 44 groups of genes/proteins with the same expression trend, including a LEA (Late embryogenesis abundant) gene, AhLEA2. Our present study showed that overexpression of the AhLEA2 gene enhanced the drought resistance of transgenic Arabidopsis plants, and the activities of related antioxidant enzymes in the transgenic plants significantly changed. The AhLEA2 gene was found to be located in the cytoplasm and cell membrane by subcellular localization experiments.• This work systematically analysed the differentially expressed proteins in peanut in response to drought stress, providing important candidates for further functional analysis of the stress response of peanut. Our results also indicated that AhLEA2 plays an important role in the peanut response to drought stress.

Transcriptomic–Proteomic Analysis Revealed the Regulatory Mechanism of Peanut in Response to Fusarium oxysporum

“…More interesting is that the peanut phenylpropanoid metabolic pathways also showed a remarkable role in the study of peanut nutrient metabolism [ 20 ], drought [ 21 ], and needle and pod development [ 23 , 48 ]. Here, some upregulated differentially expressed transcripts and proteins accumulated in the flavonoid metabolic pathways.…”

“…In particular, combined multi-omics analytical methods are widely used in the study of plant–microbial interactions [ 18 , 19 ]. In terms of the functional research related to peanuts, transcriptome and proteome sequencing were used to assist in screening the key genes involved in aerial and subterranean pods [ 20 ], drought resistance [ 21 , 22 ], development [ 23 , 24 ], environmental stress [ 25 ], and interaction with Aspergillus flavus [ 26 ]. In this study, peanut stems infected with F. oxysporum were used as experimental materials.…”

Functional in vitro diversity of an intrinsically disordered plant protein during freeze–thawing is encoded by its structural plasticity

“…These transcripts and the according proteins accumulate in most plant species in response to various environmental conditions resulting in mild to severe cellular water limitation brought upon, for example, by freezing temperatures, high salt concentrations, drought or actual desiccation, and their expression is mostly regulated via the phytohormone abscisic acid (e.g. Chen et al, 2021 ; Cheng et al, 2021 ; Ding et al, 2021 ; Gechev et al, 2021 ; He et al, 2021 ; Jin et al, 2019 ; Li et al, 2022 ; Liu et al, 2019 ), which is a major player in controlling abiotic stress regulation (Tuteja, 2007 ). Additionally, LEA protein accumulation was described in several anhydrobiotic non‐plant organisms (Hand et al, 2011 ).…”