Comprehensive Transcriptome Analysis of Rare <i>Carpinus putoensis</i> Plants under NO₂ stress

• Main Authors: Qianqian Sheng, Congzhe Liu, Min Song, Jingyuan Xu, Zunling Zhu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-05-01
• Series: Genes
• Subjects: transcriptome; NO₂ stress; high-throughput sequencing; molecular mechanism; resistance; gene expression
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/12/5/754

We evaluated a transcriptome using high-throughput Illumina HiSeq sequencing and related it to the morphology, leaf anatomy, and physiological parameters of <i>Carpinus putoensis putoensis</i> under NO₂ stress. The molecular mechanism of the <i>C. putoensis</i> NO₂ stress response was evaluated using sequencing data. NO₂ stress adversely affected the morphology, leaf anatomy, and total peroxidase (POD) activity. Through RNA-seq analysis, we used NCBI to compare the transcripts with nine databases and obtained their functional annotations. We annotated up to 2255 million clean Illumina paired-end RNA-seq reads, and 250,200 unigene sequences were assembled based on the resulting transcriptome data. More than 89% of the <i>C. putoensis</i> transcripts were functionally annotated. Under NO₂ stress, 1119 genes were upregulated and 1240 were downregulated. According to the KEGG pathway and GO analyses, photosynthesis, chloroplasts, plastids, and the stimulus response are related to NO₂ stress. Additionally, NO₂ stress changed the expression of POD families, and the <i>HPL2</i>, <i>HPL1</i>, and <i>POD</i> genes exhibited high expression. The transcriptome analysis of <i>C. putoensis</i> leaves under NO₂ stress supplies a reference for studying the molecular mechanism of <i>C. putoensis</i> resistance to NO₂ stress. The given transcriptome data represent a valuable resource for studies on plant genes, which will contribute towards genome annotations during future genome projects.