title: Transcriptome alteration in a rice introgression line with enhanced alkali tolerance.
abstract: Alkali stress inhibits plant growth and development and thus limits crop productivity. To investigate the possible genetic basis of alkali tolerance in rice, we generated an introgressed rice line (K83) with significantly enhanced tolerance to alkali stress compared to its recipient parental cultivar (Jijing88). By using microarray analysis, we examined the global gene expression profiles of K83 and Jijing88, and found that more than 1200 genes were constitutively and differentially expressed in K83 in comparison to Jijing88 with 572 genes up- and 654 down-regulated. Upon alkali treatment, a total of 347 genes were found up- and 156 down-regulated in K83 compared to 591 and 187, respectively, in Jijing88. Among the up-regulated genes in both K83 and Jijing88, only 34 were constitutively up-regulated in K83, suggesting that both the constitutive differentially expressed genes in K83 and those induced by alkali treatment are most likely responsible for enhanced alkali tolerance. A gene ontology analysis based on all annotated, differentially expressed genes revealed that genes with expression alterations were enriched in pathways involved in metabolic processes, catalytic activity, and transport and transcription factor activities, suggesting that these pathways are associated with alkali stress tolerance in rice. Our results illuminated the novel genetic aspects of alkali tolerance in rice and established a repertory of potential target genes for biotechnological manipulations that can be used to generate alkali-tolerant rice cultivars.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Molecular Epigenetics of the Ministry of Education-MOE, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China.
authors.forename: Yunhong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xiuyun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Xiufang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ou
authors.forename: Lanjuan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Jinming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Chunwu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Shucai
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Bao
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000468:Alkalies / Q000494:pharmacology*; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D063990:Gene Ontology; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D012275:Oryza / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000235:genetics; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D000468:Alkalies