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Differential transcriptomic changes in low-potassium sensitive and low-potassium tolerant tea plant (Camellia sinensis) genotypes under potassium deprivation

2019; Elsevier BV; Volume: 256; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.scienta.2019.108570

1879-1018

Yeyun Li, Wenzhi Wang, Kang Wei, Li Ruan, Liyuan Wang, Hao Cheng, Fen Zhang, Liyun Wu, Peixian Bai,

Aluminum toxicity and tolerance in plants and animals

Potassium (K) deficiency is a common abiotic stress that can inhibit plant growth and thus reduce crop productivity. K shortages in tea farms are very severe in current tea production systems. Therefore, developing low-K tolerant tea plants is an effective approach to mitigating K deficiencies in agricultural production systems. Up to now, the mechanisms underlying the transcriptional changes of tea plants under K+ deprivation have not been studied. In this study, to elucidate the underlying mechanism of tea plant genotype tolerance to K deprivation, we investigated K deprivation-induced changes in root morphology and global transcription in two tea plant genotypes, "1511″ and "1601″, which are tolerant and sensitive to low-K conditions, respectively. The results showed that the root systems were more developed in "1511″ than "1601″. The K starvation treatment increased the proportion of roots with a 0.5–2 mm diameter in "1511″ and the proportion of those with a 0–0.5 mm diameter in "1601″. There were 487 and 294 up-regulated genes in "1511″ and "1601″ (>2-fold change), respectively. The expression levels of the most differentially expressed genes in "1511″ were higher than those in "1601″. Under K+ starvation, we detected differentially expressed genes were only up-regulated in "1511″ associated with ethylene-related, ammonium transporter, nitrate transporter, catalase-related and phosphatidylinositol-related pathways. These up-regulated genes might play crucial roles in root architecture and K+ uptake and utilization, which would help enhance the low-K tolerance of "1511″. Our study provides new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying tolerance of K+ starvation and builds a foundation for selecting low-K tolerance tea plant genotypes.