title: The transcriptome of NaCl-treated Limonium bicolor leaves reveals the genes controlling salt secretion of salt gland.
abstract: Limonium bicolor, a typical recretohalophyte that lives in saline environments, excretes excessive salt to the environment through epidermal salt glands to avoid salt stress. The aim of this study was to screen for L. bicolor genes involved in salt secretion by high-throughput RNA sequencing. We established the experimental procedure of salt secretion using detached mature leaves, in which the optimal salt concentration was determined as 200 mM NaCl. The detached salt secretion system combined with Illumina deep sequencing were applied. In total, 27,311 genes were annotated using an L. bicolor database, and 2040 of these genes were differentially expressed, of which 744 were up-regulated and 1260 were down-regulated with the NaCl versus the control treatment. A gene ontology enrichment analysis indicated that genes related to ion transport, vesicles, reactive oxygen species scavenging, the abscisic acid-dependent signaling pathway and transcription factors were found to be highly expressed under NaCl treatment. We found that 102 of these genes were likely to be involved in salt secretion, which was confirmed using salt-secretion mutants. The present study identifies the candidate genes in the L. bicolor salt gland that are highly associated with salt secretion. In addition, a salt-transporting pathway is presented to explain how Na(+) is excreted by the salt gland in L. bicolor. These findings will shed light on the molecular mechanism of salt secretion from the salt glands of plants.
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Plant Stress Research, College of Life Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, 250014, Shandong, China.
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute of Computational Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
authors.forename: Ming-Ju Amy
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lyu
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Plant Stress Research, College of Life Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, 250014, Shandong, China.
authors.forename: Bing-Ying
authors.initials: BY
authors.lastname: Leng
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute of Computational Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
authors.forename: Xin-Guang
authors.initials: XG
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Plant Stress Research, College of Life Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, 250014, Shandong, China. bswang@sdnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Bao-Shan
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D017343:Genes, Plant / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D029606:Plumbaginaceae / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D055049:Salt Tolerance / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D055051:Salt-Tolerant Plants / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000494:pharmacology; D059467:Transcriptome / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D012965:Sodium Chloride
keywords: Illumina sequencing; Limonium bicolor; Recretohalophyte; Salt gland; Salt secretion