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. 2022 May 25:10:e13427.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.13427. eCollection 2022.

Heat stress response in Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L.) revealed by transcriptome and physiological analysis

Lei Zhang #  1   2 , Yun Dai #  2 , Lixin Yue  3 , Guohu Chen  1 , Lingyun Yuan  1 , Shifan Zhang  2 , Fei Li  2 , Hui Zhang  2 , Guoliang Li  2 , Shidong Zhu  1 , Jinfeng Hou  1 , Xiaoyan Tang  1 , Shujiang Zhang  2 , Chenggang Wang  1
Affiliations

Heat stress response in Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L.) revealed by transcriptome and physiological analysis

Lei Zhang et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

High temperatures have a serious impact on the quality and yield of cold-loving Chinese cabbage, which has evolved to have a unique set of stress mechanisms. To explore the relationship between these mechanisms and the heat-tolerance of Chinese cabbage, the physiological indicators of the heat-tolerant '268' line and heat-sensitive '334' line were measured. Under heat stress, the proline (Pro), soluble sugar (SS), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) indexes of the '268' line increased significantly. When additionally using transcriptome analysis, we found that the identified 3,360 DEGs were abundantly enriched in many metabolic pathways including 'plant hormone signal transduction', 'carbon metabolism', and 'glycolysis/gluconeogenesis'. Dynamic gene expression patterns showed that HKL1 in Cluster 15 may be a key factor in the regulation of sugar homeostasis. The interaction network screened four ABA-related genes in Cluster 15, suggesting that high temperatures lead to changes in hormonal signaling, especially an increase in ABA signaling. Compared with the '334' line, the expressions of Prx50, Prx52, Prx54, SOD1, and SOD2 in the '268' line were significantly upregulated, and these genes were actively involved in the reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging process. In summary, our results revealed the relationship between plant heat tolerance, physiology, and biochemistry and may also provide ideas for the future development of high-quality and heat-tolerant Chinese cabbage germplasm resources.

Keywords: Chinese cabbage; Heat stress; Physiology; ROS; Transcriptome.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Changes in appearance and moisture content of the ‘268’ and ‘334’ lines.
(A–C) Represent the ‘268’ line before heat stress (CK), during heat stress (HT-10) and recovery treatment (RC-4), respectively. (D–F) Represent the ‘334’ line before heat stress (CK), during heat stress (HT-10) and recovery treatment (RC-4), respectively. (G) The moisture content (MC) varied at different treatments.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Physiological index measurement.
(A) Changes in proline content, (B) soluble sugar content, (C) MDA content, (D) SOD activity, and (E) CAT activity in the leaves of the ‘268’ and ‘334’ lines under heat treatment and recovery. Each data point represents the mean (±SD) of three separate experiments. Tukey’s post-hoc test was used for mean comparisons, and different letters indicate significant differences (p < 0.05). Error bars represent the SD.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Venn diagrams of DEGs in the two kinds of Chinese cabbage under different heat stress.
(A) DEG numbers of the ‘268’ and ‘334’ lines related to the thermal response in the same period. Orange represents upregulated genes, and green represents downregulated genes. (B–D) Venn diagrams of DEGs between the ‘268’ and ‘334’ lines. (B) All DEGs; (C) upregulated DEGs; (D) downregulated DEGs. FDR < 0.01 and |log2(fold change)|> 2.
Figure 4
Figure 4. GO classification and KEGG enrichment analysis of DEGs.
(A) GO classification of DEGs; (B) KEGG classification of DEGs.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Expression clusters of DEGs under heat stress and recovery conditions.
Each square represents one cluster. The x-axis represents the treatment time, and the y-axis represents expression.
Figure 6
Figure 6. KEGG pathway enrichment of Clusters (A) 1, (B) 3, (C) 13, (D) 2, (E) 4, and (F) 11.
The size of the circle represents the number of genes enriched in the pathway, and the depth of the color represents the size of the q value.
Figure 7
Figure 7. KEGG pathway enrichment and putative interaction networks of clusters.
(A) KEGG pathway enrichment of Cluster 15, (B) putative interaction networks of Cluster 15, (C) putative interaction networks of Cluster 2, (D) putative interaction networks of Cluster 4. Colors from red to orange to yellow represent the top 10 hub genes with strong to weak correlations, and blue represents other genes associated with hub genes. The size of the circle represents the number of genes enriched in the pathway, and the depth of the color represents the q value.
Figure 8
Figure 8. DEGs related to enzymes, heat shock transcription factors, and heat shock proteins under different heat stress conditions.
The heatmap was generated using TBtools software, and the five boxes in each horizontal row correspond to five treatments.
Figure 9
Figure 9. Relative expression of eight selected DEGs analyzed by qRT-PCR and RNA-seq expression trends.
Bar and line graphs represent the qRTPCR and RNA-seq data, respectively. Data are presented as the mean standard error (SE).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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