TITLE:
Transcriptome Analysis of Drought Induced Stress in Chenopodium quinoa
AUTHORS:
Joshua A. Raney, Derrick J. Reynolds, David B. Elzinga, Justin Page, Joshua A. Udall, Eric N. Jellen, Alejandro Bonfacio, Daniel J. Fairbanks, Peter J. Maughan
KEYWORDS:
Quinoa; Drought Tolerance; RNA-Seq; Transcriptome Assembly
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.5 No.3,
February
8,
2014
ABSTRACT: Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is a halophytic, allotetraploid grain crop of the Amaranthaceae family
with impressive drought tolerance, nutritional content and an increasing
worldwide market. Here we report the results of an
RNA-seq transcriptome analysis of Chenopodium
quinoa using four water treatments (field capacity to drought) on the
varieties “Ingapirca” (representing valley ecotypes) and “Ollague” (representing Altiplano Salares ecotypes). Physiological results, including growth rate, photosynthetic rate,
stomatal conductance, and stem water potential, support the earlier findings
that the Altiplano Salares ecotypes display greater tolerance to drought-like stress conditions than the valley
ecotypes. cDNA libraries from root tissue samples for each variety × treatment
combination were sequenced using Illumina Hi-Seq
technology in an RNA-seq experiment. De
novo assembly of the transcriptome generated 20,337 unique transcripts.
Gene expression analysis of the RNA-seq data identified 462 putative gene
products that showed differential expression based on treatment, and 27 putative gene products differentially expressed based on variety × treatment,
including significant expression differences in root
tissue in response to increasing water stress. BLAST searches and gene ontology
analysis show an overlap between drought tolerance stress and other
abiotic stress mechanisms.