Integrative Analysis of Transcriptome and Metabolome Reveals Salt Stress Orchestrating the Accumulation of Specialized Metabolites in Lycium barbarum L. Fruit.

• 影响指数: 6.208
• 发表时间: Apr 2021 23
• 来源期刊: Int J Mol Sci
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms22094414
• PMID: 33922536
• 文章类型: Journal Article
• 中科院分区: Q2
• 方向: 生物
• 作者列表: Lin S,Zeng S,A B,Yang X,Yang T,Zheng G,Mao G,Wang Y

关键词: Lycium barbarum L.; carotenoids; flavonoids; fruit quality; salt stress

Mesh: Biosynthetic Pathways; Fruit / genetics growth & development metabolism; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Gene Regulatory Networks; Lycium / genetics growth & development metabolism; Metabolome; Plant Proteins / genetics metabolism; Salt Stress; Transcriptome

Abstract

Salt stress seriously affects yield and quality of crops. The fruit of Lycium barbarum (LBF) is extensively used as functional food due to its rich nutrient components. It remains unclear how salt stress influences the quality of LBF. In this study, we identified 71 differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) and 1396 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) among ripe LBF with and without 300 mM of NaCl treatment. Pearson correlation analysis indicated that the metabolomic changes caused by salt stress were strongly related to oxidoreductases; hydrolases; and modifying enzymes, in particular, acyltransferases, methyltransferases and glycosyltransferases. Further analysis revealed that salt stress facilitated flavonoid glycosylation and carotenoid esterification by boosting the expression of structural genes in the biosynthetic pathways. These results suggested that salt stress prompts the modification of flavonoids and carotenoids to alleviate ROS damage, which in turn improves the quality of LBF. Our results lay a solid foundation for uncovering the underlying molecular mechanism of salt stress orchestrating LBF quality, and the candidate genes identified will be a valuable gene resource for genetic improvement of L. barbarum.