Abstract

Nitrogen (N) is a critical macronutrient for plants and its utilization is fundamental to crop productivity. In the last decades, N fertilizers have been extensively used to increase both grain yield and grain protein content in wheat, helping support the human population growth while causing a serious pollution problem. Wheat is one of the most used cereal crops for the important amount of proteins it provides in human diet, and durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum) is particularly important in the Mediterranean region for the production of pasta and other typical dishes. In order to use gene knowledge to improve N-use efficiency, it is crucial to increase the understanding of how this crop responds to growth under different N conditions. Here, high-throughput sequencing was used to provide a determination of transcript levels of N-starvation-induced genes. We constructed 24 cDNA libraries from roots, leaves/stems, flag leaf and spike of durum wheat cultivar Svevo plants grown under N-deficient or standard conditions during the grain filling stage. A RNA-Seq experiment on three biological replicates for each tissue provided a large amount of sequencing data, which were used for a differential expression analysis. A total of 4968 transcripts were found differentially expressed between treated and control samples. Among them, 3270 belonged to root tissues, while the other 1698 were genes found in leaves/stems, flag leaf and spike tissues. Results highlighted that 3057 genes were differentially expressed uniquely in root tissues, 681 in leaves/stems, 298 in flag leaf and 234 only in spike tissues. The Gene Ontology analysis revealed a number of categories involved in N-stress in all organ types, the most frequent down-regulated transcripts functioned for thiamin biosynthetic and metabolic processes, photosynthesis, protein processing, localization and maturation, photorespiration, respiratory chain. Other categories such as CTP biosynthetic and metabolic processes, DNA synthesis, and amino acid metabolism were also represented. Selected genes were analysed in quantitative PCR in order to confirm their expression levels. Our results provide valuable information about N-starvation-responsive genes involved in different genetic pathways and concerning several plant organs of durum wheat. This data will help shed light on signal transduction pathways related to N-utilization and will be useful for identifying candidate genes for crop breeding.

Autore Pugliese

• Sonnante Gabriella

Tutti gli autori

• Curci P.L.; Aiese Cigliano R.; Zuluaga D.; Sanseverino W.; Sonnante G.

Titolo volume/Rivista

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Anno di pubblicazione

2016

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Settori ERC

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