Plant Drought Stress Transcriptome and Metabolome

As global temperatures rise and freshwater becomes scarcer, drought becomes a critical factor limiting agriculture, imperiling food security. Plant cells under high salinity or drought stress lose water, inducing osmotic stress, cell death, and detrimental impacts on growth, development, and functions. To cope, plants adapt their structures for water absorption or conservation, regulate plant hormone signaling, and activate defense mechanisms. Understanding tissue communication systems offers insight into how plants respond to water scarcity and the cellular mechanisms governing dehydration stress.

Mechanisms of Plant Response to Drought

Drought significantly hampers normal plant growth and triggers various strategies for water preservation and survival. At the cellular level, drought prompts the production of protective metabolites like proline and trehalose, activating antioxidant systems to maintain cell integrity. Additionally, it activates pathways involving  plant hormones like abscisic acid (ABA), jasmonic acid (JA), and phenylpropane and flavonoid biosynthesis.

Drought stress triggers the production and buildup of ABA across various plant organs, initiating downstream signal transmission critical for regulating plant responses to drought and enhancing water use efficiency. Previous research has unraveled the intricate network of the ABA pathway in managing drought stress, pinpointing transcription factors and signaling regulators associated with ABA signals. Manipulating the ABA receptor PYR1 gene has demonstrated heightened drought resilience in Arabidopsis and tomatoes.

Within the brassinosteroid signaling pathway, the negative regulator BRASSINOSTEROID-INSENSITIVE 2 (BIN2) can be dephosphorylated by ABA INSENSITIVE1 (ABI1) and ABI2. ABA's action inhibits ABI1 and ABI2, thereby activating BIN2, which subsequently triggers downstream signaling pathways. Studies suggest that BRI1-EMS-SUPPRESSOR 1 (BES1) can suppress the ABA-induced drought-related transcription factor RESPONSIVE TO DESICCATION 26 (RD26). RD26 counteracts the effect of brassinosteroids by regulating transcription controlled by BES1 and inhibiting brassinosteroid-induced growth. Moreover, various transcription factors, including WRKY and TINY, interact with BES1 and BIN2, collectively influencing plant responses to drought, indicating the joint modulation of drought resistance by both ABA and brassinosteroids.

Transcriptome and Metabolome in Plant Drought Stress 

A recent study published online in BMC Plant Biology titled "Transcriptome and metabolome analysis reveals key genes and secondary metabolites of Casuarina equisetifolia ssp. incana in response to drought stress," employed transcriptomics and metabolomics to uncover the crucial mechanisms governing Casuarina equisetifolia's response to drought stress. The research involved analyzing Casuarina equisetifolia shoots using joint transcriptomic and metabolomic methods under normal conditions (D_0h) and after 2, 12, and 24 hours of prolonged drought treatment (D_2h, D_12h, and D_24h). The authors identified 5033 and 8159 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 148 and 168 differentially accumulated metabolites (DAM) in D_2h/D_0h and D_24h/D_0h, respectively. The analysis unveiled associations between drought-induced DEGs and pathways linked to ABA and JA signaling, phenylpropane, and flavonoid biosynthesis. Moreover, it highlighted increased expression of genes related to JA biosynthesis and accumulation of flavonoids and phenolic substances under drought stress.

In summary, Casuarina equisetifolia responds to drought by modulating plant hormone signaling, JA, flavonoids analysis, and phenylpropane biosynthesis. These findings enhance comprehension of how plant endures or combats drought stress at genetic and metabolic levels, offering valuable insights for reconstructing and managing coastal vegetation.

For researchers investigating Plant Drought Stress, MetwareBio provides conprehensive metabolomics, lipidomics, and multi-omics services to elevate and strengthen your research:

-          Widely-Targeted Metabolomics for Plants (we have >30,000 plant metabolites in our in-house database)

-          Flavonoids Metabolomics (>3,700 flavonoids for plants research)

-          Targeted Plant Hormone Assay

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