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Global transcriptome profiling analysis reveals insight into saliva-responsive genes in alfalfa

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Abstract

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We studied the genome-wide multiple time-course transcriptome dynamics after saliva deposition in alfalfa and demonstrate that saliva deposition functions as a stress that negatively affects the regrowth of alfalfa.

Abstract

Saliva deposition is one of the key factors influencing plant-herbivore interactions during grazing. Although many studies have focused on the effects of saliva deposition on plant regrowth, no consistent conclusions have been reached. Alfalfa is the most extensively cultivated forage legume, yet most alfalfa cultivars, thus far, are not grazing-tolerant. To better understand the underlying mechanism, we undertook a study to evaluate the global changes in the transcriptome of alfalfa after cow saliva deposition treatment. In this study, cDNA libraries from alfalfa seedlings at 0, 4, 8, and 24 h after cow saliva deposition were constructed and sequenced, resulting in the identification of 53,195 annotated unigenes, from which 4,814 unigenes were significantly differentially expressed. A metabolic pathway enrichment analysis demonstrated that saliva deposition functions as a stress that negatively affects the regrowth of alfalfa by modifying jasmonic acid synthesis, enhancing the susceptibility to pathogens and reducing the expression levels of ribosomal protein genes. In the present study, we demonstrate the potential effects of saliva deposition on alfalfa regrowth at the transcriptome level. These fundamental and important findings could facilitate further investigations into the molecular mechanisms underlying the responses of alfalfa and other related species to herbivore grazing.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2014CB138704), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31272492, 31502000), and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT13019). We are grateful to Dr. Zulfi Jahufer (AgResearch Grasslands Research Center, New Zealand) for critical review of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystems, College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

    Wenxian Liu, Zhengshe Zhang, Lichao Ma, Hucheng Wang, Rui Dong, Yanrong Wang & Zhipeng Liu

  2. Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, Institute of Botany, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Shuangyan Chen

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  1. Wenxian Liu
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  2. Zhengshe Zhang
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  3. Shuangyan Chen
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Correspondence to Zhipeng Liu.

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Communicated by Z.-Y. Wang.

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Fig. S1 Clean reads in the four sample libraries (TIFF 222 kb)

Fig. S2 The quality of the assembled transcripts (TIFF 135 kb)

Fig. S3 Venn diagrams of the unigenes in the four libraries (TIFF 2479 kb)

299_2015_1903_MOESM4_ESM.tif

Fig. S4 GO classification of the assembled transcripts. The genes were assigned to three main categories: biological process, molecular function and cellular component. The right-hand y-axis indicates the number of annotated genes. The left-hand y-axis indicates the percentage of annotated genes (TIFF 1433 kb)

Fig. S5 COG function classifications of the assembled transcripts (TIFF 2185 kb)

Fig. S6 KEGG annotation of the assembled transcripts (TIFF 1681 kb)

299_2015_1903_MOESM7_ESM.docx

Fig. S7 Heat map diagram of the expression levels of the DEGs specifically enriched in the KEGG pathways. a DEGs involved in JA biosynthesis. b DEGs involved in plant-pathogen interaction. c DEGs involved in plant hormone signal transduction. d DEGs involved in ribosome (DOCX 1933 kb)

Supplementary material 8 (XLS 9 kb)

Supplementary material 9 (XLS 62 kb)

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Liu, W., Zhang, Z., Chen, S. et al. Global transcriptome profiling analysis reveals insight into saliva-responsive genes in alfalfa. Plant Cell Rep 35, 561–571 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-015-1903-9

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