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. 2022 May 25;23(11):5947.
doi: 10.3390/ijms23115947.

Comparative Metabolic Study of Two Contrasting Chinese Cabbage Genotypes under Mild and Severe Drought Stress

Lin Chen  1 , Yongrui Shen  2 , Wenjing Yang  1 , Qiming Pan  1 , Chao Li  1 , Qingguo Sun  1 , Qi Zeng  1 , Baohua Li  1 , Lugang Zhang  1
Affiliations

Comparative Metabolic Study of Two Contrasting Chinese Cabbage Genotypes under Mild and Severe Drought Stress

Lin Chen et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L. ssp. pekinensis) is an important leafy vegetable crop cultivated worldwide. Drought is one of the most important limiting factors for the growth, production and quality of Chinese cabbage due to its weak drought tolerance. In order to deepen the understanding of drought stress response in Chinese cabbage, metabolomics studies were conducted in drought-tolerant (DT) and drought-susceptible (DS) genotypes of Chinese cabbage under water deficit-simulated mild and severe drought stress conditions. A total of 777 metabolites were detected, wherein 90 of them were proposed as the drought-responsive metabolites in Chinese cabbage, with abscisic acid (ABA), serine, choline alfoscerate, and sphingosine as potential representative drought stress biomarkers. We also found that drought-tolerant and drought-susceptible genotypes showed differential metabolic accumulation patterns with contrasting drought response mechanisms. Notably, constitutively high levels of ABA and glutathione were detected in drought-tolerant genotype in all tested and control conditions. In addition, proline, sucrose, γ-aminobutyric acid, and glutathione were also found to be highly correlated to drought tolerance. This study is the first metabolomic study on how Chinese cabbage responds to drought stress, and could provide insights on how to develop and cultivate new drought-resistant varieties.

Keywords: Chinese cabbage; abscisic acid; drought stress; glutathione; metabolome.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Phenotypic screening and investigations of drought−susceptible (DS) and drought−tolerant (DT) genotypes. (a) Soil water content during drought stress. Sampling time labeled in red; (b) Morphology of DS and DT after 3 and 5 days without watering. Scale bars, 7 cm; (c) Leaf water content of DS and DT after 3 and 5 days without watering. Statistical differences are indicated with lowercase letters determined by Duncan’s test at p < 0.05. (d) Water loss of DS and DT. All data are shown as means ± SE with three independent biological replicates.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Metabolic profiling of drought−tolerant and susceptible genotypes in response to mild and severe drought stress. (a) Number of metabolites and differential metabolites in different classes. The statistical significance was determined via hypergeometric test with * p < 0.05; (b) Principal component analysis (PCA); (c) Heatmap of Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Different colors represent different samples, DS−3d (pink), DS−3d−CK (baby blue), DS−5d(orange), DS−5d−CK (green), DT−3d (purple), DT−3d−CK (dark blue), DT−5d (lightsalmon), DT−5d−CK (dark green), mix (golden yellow).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Analysis of differential metabolites (DMs). (a) Number of upregulated and downregulated DMs in 12 comparison groups; (b) The K−means analysis of DMs.
Figure 4
Figure 4
KEGG pathway analysis of 291 differential metabolites of drought−tolerant and susceptible genotypes in response to drought stress.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Venn diagrams showing the numbers of upregulated (a,c) and downregulated (b,d) differential metabolites (DMs) in different comparison groups. The metabolites labeled in red are considered as the drought−responsive metabolites.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Heatmap of 90 drought−responsive metabolites in Chinese cabbage was constructed based on Log2 ratios of fold changes. The metabolites labeled in red were considered as potential biomarkers of drought stress in Chinese cabbage. The Log2 (fold changes values) and the color scale are shown at the bottom right of heatmap.
Figure 7
Figure 7
KEGG pathway enrichment analysis and differential abundance (DA) scores of differential metabolites (DMs) in four comparison groups. (a) DS−3d−CK vs. DS−3d; (b) DT−3d−CK vs. DT−3d; (c) DS−5d−CK vs. DS−5d; (d) DT−5d−CK vs. DT−5d.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Venn diagram showing the number of upregulated (a) and downregulated (b) differential metabolites (DMs) between DS and DT under control and drought conditions.
Figure 9
Figure 9
The outline of drought−tolerant genotype responses to drought stress. The red represents increased, while the green represents decreased. ABA, abscisic acid; IAA, indole 3−acetic acid; GPC, choline alfoscerate; TCA cycle, citrate cycle; GABA, γ−aminobutyric acid; ROS, reactive oxygen species.
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