Studies on mapping plant genes that confer tolerance to abiotic stresses

Authors: Wang, Richard

Submitted to: International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/5/2022
Publication Date: 9/15/2022
Citation: Wang, R. 2022. Studies on mapping plant genes that confer tolerance to abiotic stresses. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 23(18). Article 10760. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms231810760.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms231810760

Interpretive Summary: Climate change is affecting the earth environment through temperature fluctuation, rainfall patterns, wind, and radiation. These environmental conditions can cause abiotic stresses (heat, cold, drought, salinity, waterlogging, UV, and heavy metals, etc.) on plants. Plants under abiotic stresses would be stunted, leading to yield loss in biomass and/or seed. To produce sufficient plant products for the future demand of food and feed, plant breeders are striving to improve the plant tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses. Therefore, the knowledge on stress tolerance mechanisms, gene functions and locations became increasingly critical. Thus, the special issue "Mapping Abiotic Stress-Tolerance Genes in Plants" of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS) was launched in 2019-2020, resulting in the publication of a collection of 21 papers. Because of the importance of this topic, more researchers are devoting their research efforts to studying genes conferring tolerance to abiotic stresses in plants. Whole-genome sequencing technique has been widely used in many plant species, allowing the precise localization of genes to chromosomes. Mapping genes for abiotic stress tolerance genes to chromosomes is helpful to breeders in breeding resilient crops to sustain crop production. Therefore, the IJMS special issue was continued for the year 2020-2021.

Technical Abstract: There were 7 research articles and 1 review published in this 2020-2021 special issue. The seven research articles reported the studies on Down regulated associated protein (DrAP), Expansin (EXP), Benzoxazinoids (BXs), Domain of unknown function (DUF), PIN-FORMED (PIN), YUCCA flavin monooxygenases (YUC), Glycoside Hydrolase 3 (GH3), and UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs), SIMILAR TO RCD-ONEs (SROs), and Trehalose-6-Phosphate Synthetase (TPS) gene families. The review article examined the effects of abiotic stresses on parasitic plant and, in turn, its host. Of the 109 genes mapped to chromosomes (or scaffolds), 47 were regarded as proximally located and 62 distally located, resulting in a 1.32:1 distal/proximal ratio (lower that the 2.20:1 in the first special issue). The availability of new publications on the topic and whole-genome sequencing databases of Chinese Spring bread wheat provides the opportunity for mapping the differentially expressed genes found in a transcriptome study of salt-tolerant wheat germplasm lines W4909 and W4910 developed at and released from USDA-ARS Forage & Range Research Laboratory. A total of 41 DEGs were mapped to 16 chromosomes at 43 chromosomal locations, which had a 36:7 distal to proximal ratio. The value of W4909 and W4910 in molecular research on salt tolerance genes and wheat breeding programs to release high-yielding salt-tolerant wheat cultivars was discussed.