title: Transcriptomic basis for drought-resistance in Brassica napus L.
abstract: Based on transcriptomic data from four experimental settings with drought-resistant and drought-sensitive cultivars under drought and well-watered conditions, statistical analysis revealed three categories encompassing 169 highly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in response to drought in Brassica napus L., including 37 drought-resistant cultivar-related genes, 35 drought-sensitive cultivar-related genes and 97 cultivar non-specific ones. We provide evidence that the identified DEGs were fairly uniformly distributed on different chromosomes and their expression patterns are variety specific. Except commonly enriched in response to various stimuli or stresses, different categories of DEGs show specific enrichment in certain biological processes or pathways, which indicated the possibility of functional differences among the three categories. Network analysis revealed relationships among the 169 DEGs, annotated biological processes and pathways. The 169 DEGs can be classified into different functional categories via preferred pathways or biological processes. Some pathways might simultaneously involve a large number of shared DEGs, and these pathways are likely to cross-talk and have overlapping biological functions. Several members of the identified DEGs fit to drought stress signal transduction pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana. Finally, quantitative real-time PCR validations confirmed the reproducibility of the RNA-seq data. These investigations are profitable for the improvement of crop varieties through transgenic engineering.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Henan Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Pei
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Henan Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Cuiling
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Henan Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Henan Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Chunpeng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Henan Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Henan Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, College of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Daojie
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000235:genetics*; D029688:Brassica napus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D002876:Chromosomes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D055864:Droughts; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D063990:Gene Ontology; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000235:genetics; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000235:genetics; D059467:Transcriptome / Q000235:genetics*