Comparative Transcriptome Profiling of Bacteria-Mediated Drought Tolerance In Maize (Zea mays L.) Seedlings
Abstract
Drought is considered the most important limiting factor in crop production all around the world and it negatively impacts plant growth and productivity. Many studies have suggested that plants recruit specific microbiomes depending on their environmental conditions and some bacteria have been shown to be able to alleviate drought stress in plants. The present research project aims to allow a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the ability of these bacteria to confer drought tolerance to plants by performing whole transcriptomic analysis using RNA sequencing. The mRNA transcriptomes from maize (Zea mays L.) seedlings were studied 5 and 9 days after inoculation with 2 different bacteria, Bacillus sp. 12D6 and an Enterobacter sp.16i known to confer drought resistance to maize. The data obtained were aligned to the maize genome using the STAR aligner and the reads were counted using Htseq and the differential gene expression analysis was performed using EdgeR. The gene ontology analysis was performed using ShinyGO and the KEGG pathway analysis with KEGG mapper. Our results show different and common pattern for the regulation of genes associated with Ethylene biosynthesis, Abscisic acid, Auxin signaling, Superoxide dismutase, Catalase, Peroxidase, Heat shock proteins, and late embryogenesis abundant protein in the seedlings inoculated with the two bacteria. These results have provided useful knowledge on the beneficial actions of these two bacteria.
Citation
Ouro-Djobo, Ashrafou (2020). Comparative Transcriptome Profiling of Bacteria-Mediated Drought Tolerance In Maize (Zea mays L.) Seedlings. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /192597.