Transcriptomics-based identification of transcription factors in the halophyte Apocynum venetum L.

ABSTRACT

The medicinal halophyte plant Apocynum venetum L. can tolerate high salt levels in the soil, which significantly affects its growth and development. To study the molecular mechanisms underlying its environmental adaptations, omics tools were employed. Apocynum venetum L. plants were subjected to varying levels of salt stress. The corresponding RNA of Apocyni Veneti Folium (AVF), the leaf of Apocynum venetum L., was sequenced using a de novo approach. Functional annotation and expression analysis were utilised to identify differentially expressed transcription factors (TFs). The classification of these TFs was further divided into different families, including AP2/ERF, bHLH, WRKY, and HSF. Under conditions of modest saline stress, the majority of TF genes exhibited a predilection for up-regulation, particularly bHLHs, which were discovered to be consistent with the build-up of flavonoid glycosides. In conjunction with previous proteomics and metabolomics findings, we have discovered that the gene bHLH35 is a potential candidate. This gene has shown changes at both the transcript and protein levels, indicating that it may play a crucial role in the biosynthesis of flavonoids under salt-induced environments. These findings provide invaluable information on the identification of key genes involved in elucidating flavonoid biosynthesis mechanisms and serve as a basis for the improvement of the halophyte AVF’s quality.

KEYWORDS:

• Apocyni Veneti Folium
• transcription factors
• salt stress
• bHLH
• flavonoids

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the General Program of the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (20KJD360001).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The transcriptome’s raw sequence reads have been uploaded to NCBI’s website with the BioProject ID PRJNA648437. The dataset identification for the mass spectrometry proteomics data is PXD020646, and it has been submitted to the ProteomeXchange Consortium database via the PRIDE partner repository. The corresponding author or the first author can provide you with any data used to support the findings of this manuscript upon reasonable request.

CRediT author statement

Chen Cuihua: Conceptualisation, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Writing – original draft and Writing – review & editing. Xue Jia: Formal analysis, Investigation, Supervision, Validation, and Visualisation. Chen Haijie: Data curation, Project administration, Validation, and Writing – original draft. Zhou Yongyi: Project administration, Resources, Validation and Visualisation. Liu Xunhong: Conceptualisation, Supervision, Writing – original draft and Writing – review & editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14620316.2023.2280562.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the General Program of the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [20KJD360001].