Identification of drought stress-responsive transcription factor in ramie (Boehmeria nivea L.Gaud)
Drought is a main environment stress which severely inhibits the stem growth of ramie and lead to a decrease of the fiber yield. The mechanisms of ramie responding to drought stress are poorly understood. Using Illumina sequencing, approximately 4.8 million (M) 21-nt cDNA tags were sequenced in the cDNA library derived from the drought-stressed ramie (DS), and about 4.7 M were sequenced in the cDNA library constructed from the control ramie under well water condition (CO). The tags generated from two libraries were aligned with ramie transcriptome to annotate their function and a total of 23,912 and 22,826 ramie genes were matched by these tags of DS and CO library, respectively. Comparison of gene expression level between CO and DS ramie based on the differences of tag frequencies appearing in two libraries revealed that 1101 and 505 genes were respectively up- and down- regulated under drought stress. Pathway enrichment analysis identified a set of significantly enriched pathways of DEGs. A series of candidate genes and pathways that may contribute to drought tolerance in ramie will be helpful for further improving ramie drought tolerance ability. Overall design: 3' tag-based DGE libraries were generated to exam the differentially expressed gene between drought-stressed and well-watered ramie