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. 2022 Sep 23:13:970113.
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.970113. eCollection 2022.

The early response of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) plants to water deprivation: Expression analysis of miRNAs and their putative target genes, and similarities with the response to salinity stress

Fernanda Ferreira Salgado  1 , Thalliton Luiz Carvalho da Silva  1 , Letícia Rios Vieira  1 , Vivianny Nayse Belo Silva  1 , André Pereira Leão  2 , Marcos Mota do Carmo Costa  3 , Roberto Coiti Togawa  3 , Carlos Antônio Ferreira de Sousa  4 , Priscila Grynberg  3 , Manoel Teixeira Souza Jr  1   2
Affiliations

The early response of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) plants to water deprivation: Expression analysis of miRNAs and their putative target genes, and similarities with the response to salinity stress

Fernanda Ferreira Salgado et al. Front Plant Sci. .

Abstract

Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is a oilseed crop of great economic importance drastically affected by abiotic stresses. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play crucial roles in transcription and post-transcription regulation of gene expression, being essential molecules in the response of plants to abiotic stress. To better understand the molecular mechanisms behind the response of young oil palm plants to drought stress, this study reports on the prediction and characterization of miRNAs and their putative target genes in the apical leaf of plants subjected to 14 days of water deprivation. Then, the data from this study were compared to the data from a similar study that focused on salinity stress. Both, the drought-and salt-responsive miRNAs and their putative target genes underwent correlation analysis to identify similarities and dissimilarities among them. Among the 81 identified miRNAs, 29 are specific for oil palm, including two (egu-miR28ds and egu-miR29ds) new ones - described for the first time. As for the expression profile, 62 miRNAs were significantly differentially expressed under drought stress, being five up-regulated (miR396e, miR159b, miR529b, egu-miR19sds, and egu-miR29ds) and 57 down-regulated. Transcription factors, such as MYBs, HOXs, and NF-Ys, were predicted as putative miRNA-target genes in oil palm under water deprivation; making them the most predominant group of such genes. Finally, the correlation analysis study revealed a group of putative target genes with similar behavior under salt and drought stresses. Those genes that are upregulated by these two abiotic stresses encode lncRNAs and proteins linked to stress tolerance, stress memory, modulation of ROS signaling, and defense response regulation to abiotic and biotic stresses. In summary, this study provides molecular evidence for the possible involvement of miRNAs in the drought stress response in oil palm. Besides, it shows that, at the molecular level, there are many similarities in the response of young oil palm plants to these two abiotic stresses.

Keywords: abiotic stress; lncRNA; non-coding RNA; tolerance; transcription factor; transcriptome.

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Conflict of interest statement

AL, MC, RT, CS, PG, and MS were employed by The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Morphophysiological responses of young oil palm plants to drought stress: (A) average daily rate of evapotranspiration of irrigated and non-irrigated oil palm plants from experiment 1, (B) average daily rate of evapotranspiration of irrigated and non-irrigated oil palm plants from experiment 2, (C) morphological changes of oil palm at 5, 11, and 14 days of drought stress. Evapotranspiration (Average): Percentage of the initial value measured in day 0.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Gas exchange rates in leaves of young oil palm plants subjected to 14 days of drought stress in greenhouse conditions: (A) net CO2 assimilation rate – A; (B) transpiration rate – E; (C) stomatal conductance – gs; and (D) intercellular CO2 concentration – Ci. After submitting the gas exchange data to the Kruskal-Wallis test, Dunn’s test (p < 0.05) was applied to data with significant differences between treatments. ns - not significantly different, and ** or *** - significantly different.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Structure of the new miRNAs identified in oil palm under water deficit.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Expression profiles in Log2(FC) of the differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs and their respective DE putative target gene(s), resulted from submission of young oil palm plants to drought stress. FC, Fold Change.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Histogram and correlation analysis of the Log2 (FC) of differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs (A) and their respective DE putative target genes (B), by pairwise comparison of two scenarios: Salt stress and Drought stress. Stars of same color identify miRNAs (in A) and their respective putative target genes upregulated in both stresses (in B). FC, Fold Change.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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