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. 2021 Dec 16;16(12):e0261472.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261472. eCollection 2021.

Transcriptome analysis of Kentucky bluegrass subject to drought and ethephon treatment

Jiahang Zhang  1 , Yanan Gao  2 , Lixin Xu  1 , Liebao Han  1
Affiliations

Transcriptome analysis of Kentucky bluegrass subject to drought and ethephon treatment

Jiahang Zhang et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) is an excellent cool-season turfgrass utilized widely in Northern China. However, turf quality of Kentucky bluegrass declines significantly due to drought. Ethephon seeds-soaking treatment has been proved to effectively improve the drought tolerance of Kentucky bluegrass seedlings. In order to investigate the effect of ethephon leaf-spraying method on drought tolerance of Kentucky bluegrass and understand the underlying mechanism, Kentucky bluegrass plants sprayed with and without ethephon are subjected to either drought or well watered treatments. The relative water content and malondialdehyde conent were measured. Meanwhile, samples were sequenced through Illumina. Results showed that ethephon could improve the drought tolerance of Kentucky bluegrass by elevating relative water content and decreasing malondialdehyde content under drought. Transcriptome analysis showed that 58.43% transcripts (254,331 out of 435,250) were detected as unigenes. A total of 9.69% (24,643 out of 254,331) unigenes were identified as differentially expressed genes in one or more of the pairwise comparisons. Differentially expressed genes due to drought stress with or without ethephon pre-treatment showed that ethephon application affected genes associated with plant hormone, signal transduction pathway and plant defense, protein degradation and stabilization, transportation and osmosis, antioxidant system and the glyoxalase pathway, cell wall and cuticular wax, fatty acid unsaturation and photosynthesis. This study provides a theoretical basis for revealing the mechanism for how ethephon regulates drought response and improves drought tolerance of Kentucky bluegrass.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Schematic overview of the experimental design for well-watered control plants without ethephon application (CK), drought control plants without ehtphon application (Drought), and drought control plants with ethephon pre-treatment (ETH_D).
CK means well-watered control plants without ethephon application. Drought means drought-stressed plants without ethephon application. ETH_D means drought-stressed plants with ethephon pre-treatment.
Fig 2
Fig 2
A. Relative water content of each samples B. Malondialdehyde content of each treatment. CK means well-watered control plants without ethephon application. Drought means drought-stressed plants without ethephon application. ETH_D means drought-stressed plants with ethephon pre-treatment.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Effects of ethephon on Kentucky bluegrass under drought.
CK means well-watered control plants without ethephon application. Drought means drought-stressed plants without ethephon pre-treatment. ETH_D means drought-stressed plants with ethephon pre-treatment.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Summary and taxonomic source of BLASTx matches for Kentucky bluegrass unigenes.
Percentage of unique best BLASTx matches of unigenes grouped by genus.
Fig 5
Fig 5
A. Venn diagram for all differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in Kentucky bluegrass B. Venn diagram for up-regulated genes in Kentucky bluegrass C. Venn diagram for down-regulated genes in Kentucky bluegrass. ‘CK’ means well-watered control plants without ethephon pre-treatment. ‘Drought’ means drought-stressed plants without ethephon application. ‘ETH_D’ means drought stressed plants with ethephon pre-treatment. DEGs were quantified at false discovery rate threshold (FDR) of 0.001 and log2 (fold change) larger than 2. Total DEGs for each comparison are shown in parenthesis.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Heat map of all differentially expressed genes in Kentucky bluegrass.
‘CK’ means well-watered control plants without ethephon pre-treatment. ‘Drought’ means drought-stressed plants without ethephon application. ‘ETH_D’ means drought-stressed plants with ethephon pre-treatment.
Fig 7
Fig 7. Enriched GO terms.
A. Drought vs CK; B. ETH_D vs CK. ‘CK’ means well-watered control plants without ethephon pre-treatment. ‘Drought’ means drought-stressed plants without ethephon application. ‘ETH_D’ means drought-stressed plants with ethephon pre-treatment.
Fig 8
Fig 8. Validation of DEGs data by qRT-PCR.
‘CK’ means well-watered control plants without ethephon pre-treatment. ‘Drought’ means drought-stressed plants without ethephon application. ‘ETH_D’ means drought-stressed plants with ethephon pre-treatment.
Fig 9
Fig 9. The mechanism for how ethephon regulates drought response and improves drought tolerance of Kentucky bluegrass.
The gene in red indicates that the gene is up-regulated and the gene in green indicates that the gene is down-regulated.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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This work was funded by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant numbers 2021ZY83) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 31971770).