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. 2022 Dec 27;24(1):452.
doi: 10.3390/ijms24010452.

Comparative Metabolomic Studies of Siberian Wildrye (Elymus sibiricus L.): A New Look at the Mechanism of Plant Drought Resistance

Qingqing Yu  1   2 , Yi Xiong  1 , Xiaoli Su  1 , Yanli Xiong  1 , Zhixiao Dong  1 , Junming Zhao  1 , Xin Shu  1 , Shiqie Bai  2 , Xiong Lei  2 , Lijun Yan  2 , Xiao Ma  1
Affiliations

Comparative Metabolomic Studies of Siberian Wildrye (Elymus sibiricus L.): A New Look at the Mechanism of Plant Drought Resistance

Qingqing Yu et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Drought is one of the most important factors affecting plant growth and production due to ongoing global climate change. Elymus sibiricus has been widely applied for ecological restoration and reseeding of degraded grassland in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) because of its strong adaptability to barren, salted, and drought soils. To explore the mechanism of drought resistance in E. sibiricus, drought-tolerant and drought-sensitive genotypes of E. sibiricus were used in metabolomic studies under simulated long-term and short-term drought stress. A total of 1091 metabolites were detected, among which, 27 DMs were considered to be the key metabolites for drought resistance of E. sibiricus in weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). Ten metabolites, including 3-amino-2-methylpropanoic acid, coniferin, R-aminobutyrate, and so on, and 12 metabolites, including L-Proline, L-histidine, N-acetylglycine, and so on, showed differential accumulation patterns under short-term and long-term drought stress, respectively, and thus, could be used as biomarkers for drought-tolerant and drought-sensitive E. sibiricus. In addition, different metabolic accumulation patterns and different drought response mechanisms were also found in drought-tolerant and drought-sensitive genotypes of E. sibiricus. Finally, we constructed metabolic pathways and metabolic patterns for the two genotypes. This metabolomic study on the drought stress response of E. sibiricus can provide resources and a reference for the breeding of new drought-tolerant cultivars of E. sibiricus.

Keywords: Elymus sibiricus; drought stress; flavonoids; metabolomics; proline.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Related physiological indicators of drought-tolerant (X) and drought-sensitive (W) genotypes. (A): Relative water content (RWC). (B): Relative electrical conductivity (REC). Different lower-case letters in the figure indicate significant difference at level of p < 0.05.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Number of metabolites histogram, (A): All metabolites are classified in blue and their amounts, red is the number and classification of DMs; (B): differential metabolites of 25 comparison groups, up-regulated in red and down-regulated in blue.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Sample quality control diagram, (A): Hierarchical clustering of 30 samples; (B): 2D map of principal component analysis; (C): Pearson’s correlation heatmap of 30 samples.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(A) Venn diagrams of differential metabolites up-regulated by drought-tolerant genotype (X) and drought-sensitive genotype (W); (B): KEGG enrichment pathway map of DMs in 8 comparison groups.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Graph of WGCNA results based on 1091 metabolites with REC and RWC, (A): Module Diagram of WGCNA, 7 different colors represent 7 different modules; (B): Histogram of the number of metabolites in each module; (C): Pearson’s correlation heatmap of 7 modules with REC and RWC, red is positive correlation, green is negative correlation, the darker the color, the stronger the correlation (*** means p < 0.001; ** means p < 0.01).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Venn diagram showing the number of up-regulated (A) for drought-tolerant genotype (X) and (C) for drought-sensitive genotype (W) and down- regulated (B) for drought-tolerant genotype (X) and (D) for drought-sensitive genotype (W) DMs between drought-tolerant genotype (X) and drought-sensitive genotype (W).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Trend analysis of DMs in drought-tolerant genotype (A) and drought-sensitive genotype (B); (C): KEGG enrichment of DMs in profile 19, which was specific to drought-tolerant genotype.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Analysis of the metabolic network in E. sibiricus under drought stress. The proposed metabolic pathways are based on the literature and KEGG database. Red indicates a significant increase, blue indicates a significant decrease, and gray indicates no significant change.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Patterns of response to drought stress in drought resistant and drought sensitive genotypes of E. sibiricus. The red font indicates increased, while the blue font indicates decreased.
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