Weighted gene coexpression network analysis-based identification of key modules and hub genes associated with drought se
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Weighted gene coexpression network analysis-based identification of key modules and hub genes associated with drought sensitivity in rice Baiyang Yu1†, Jianbin Liu1†, Di Wu1, Ying Liu1, Weijian Cen1, Shaokui Wang2, Rongbai Li1* and Jijing Luo1,3*
Abstract Background: Drought stress is an adverse factor with deleterious effects on several aspects of rice growth. However, the mechanism underlying drought resistance in rice remains unclear. To understand the molecular mechanism of the drought response in rice, drought-sensitive CSSL (Chromosome Single-substitution Segment Line) PY6 was used to map QTLs of sensitive phenotypes and to reveal the impact of the QTLs on transcriptional profiling. Results: The QTL dss-1 was mapped onto the short arm of chromosome 1 of rice. According to transcriptomic analysis, the identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) exhibited a downregulated pattern and were mainly enriched in photosynthesis-related GO terms, indicating that photosynthesis was greatly inhibited under drought. Further, according to weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA), specific gene modules (designating a group of genes with a similar expression pattern) were strongly correlated with H2O2 (4 modules) and MDA (3 modules), respectively. Likewise, GO analysis revealed that the photosynthesis-related GO terms were consistently overrepresented in H2O2-correlated modules. Functional annotation of the differentially expressed hub genes (DEHGs) in the H2O2 and MDA-correlated modules revealed cross-talk between abiotic and biotic stress responses for these genes, which were annotated as encoding WRKYs and PR family proteins, were notably differentially expressed between PY6 and PR403. Conclusions: We speculated that drought-induced photosynthetic inhibition leads to H2O2 and MDA accumulation, which can then trigger the reprogramming of the rice transcriptome, including the hub genes involved in ROS scavenging, to prevent oxidative stress damage. Our results shed light on and provide deep insight into the drought resistance mechanism in rice. Keywords: Rice, Transcriptomic profiling, Drought-sensitive phenotype, WGCNA, Photosynthesis inhibition, H2O2/ MDA accumulation, DEGs encoding WRKYs/PR proteins
* Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] † Baiyang Yu and Jianbin Liu contributed equally to this work. 1 College of Life Science and Technology (State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-bioresources), Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in t
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