A comparison of differential gene expression in response to the onset of water stress between three hybrid Brachiaria genotypes

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Jones, Charlotte, De Vega, Jose, Worthington, Margaret, Thomas, Ann, Gasior, Dagmara, Harper, John, Doonan, John, Fu, Yuan, Bosch, Maurice, Corke, Fiona, Arango, Jacobo, Cardoso, Juan Andres, de la Cruz Jimenez, Juan, Armstead, Ian and Fernandez-Fuentes, Narcis (2021) A comparison of differential gene expression in response to the onset of water stress between three hybrid Brachiaria genotypes. Frontiers in Plant Science, 12. ISSN 1664-462X

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Abstract

Brachiaria (Trin.) Griseb. (syn. Urochloa P. Beauv.) is a C4 grass genus belonging to the Panicoideae. Native to Africa, these grasses are now widely grown as forages in tropical areas worldwide and are the subject of intensive breeding, particularly in South America. Tolerance to abiotic stresses such as aluminum and drought are major breeding objectives. In this study, we present the transcriptomic profiling of leaves and roots of three Brachiaria interspecific hybrid genotypes with the onset of water stress, Br12/3659-17 (gt-17), Br12/2360-9 (gt-9), and Br12/3868-18 (gt-18), previously characterized as having good, intermediate and poor tolerance to drought, respectively, in germplasm evaluation programs. RNA was extracted from leaf and root tissue of plants at estimated growing medium water contents (EWC) of 35, 15, and 5%. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were compared between different EWCs, 35/15, 15/5, and 35/5 using DESeq2. Overall, the proportions of DEGs enriched in all three genotypes varied in a genotype-dependent manner in relation to EWC comparison, with intermediate and sensitive gt-9 and gt-18 being more similar to each other than to drought tolerant gt-17. More specifically, GO terms relating to carbohydrate and cell wall metabolism in the leaves were enriched by up-regulated DEGs in gt-9 and gt-18, but by down-regulated DEGs in gt-17. Across all genotypes, analysis of DEG enzyme activities indicated an excess of down-regulated putative apoplastic peroxidases in the roots as water stress increased. This suggests that changes in root cell-wall architecture may be an important component of the response to water stress in Brachiaria.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Data Availability Statement: The data presented in this study can be found in the European Nucleotide Archive repository under the study accession number PRJEB41722 (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB41722). Additional data that support the results are included within the article and its additional files. Other relevant materials are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request. Plant material is publicly available at the CIAT Genebank (genebanks.org/resources/crops/forages-grass/). Funding: This work was funded by a UK BBSRC Newton Fund Postdoctoral Twinning Award BBS/OS/NW/000011 and UK BBSRC BBS/E/W/0012844A.
Uncontrolled Keywords: brachiaria,comparative transcriptomics,differentially expressed genes (degs),drought,functional enrichment,plant science ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1100/1110
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 08 Sep 2025 12:54
Last Modified: 08 Sep 2025 12:54
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100306
DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2021.637956

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