Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Drought Stress-Related Reprogramming of Gene Expression in Barley Leaves Involves Loading of ABA-Related Genes with Euchromatic Marks H3K4me3 and H3K9ac

Charlotte Ost
,
Xuan Hieu Cao
ORCID logo ,
Thuy Linh Nguyen
,
Axel Himmelbach
ORCID logo ,
Martin Mascher
ORCID logo ,
Nils Stein
ORCID logo ,
Klaus Humbeck
*
Version 1 : Received: 14 July 2023 / Approved: 17 July 2023 / Online: 17 July 2023 (04:07:59 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Ost, C.; Cao, H.X.; Nguyen, T.L.; Himmelbach, A.; Mascher, M.; Stein, N.; Humbeck, K. Drought-Stress-Related Reprogramming of Gene Expression in Barley Involves Differential Histone Modifications at ABA-Related Genes. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24, 12065. Ost, C.; Cao, H.X.; Nguyen, T.L.; Himmelbach, A.; Mascher, M.; Stein, N.; Humbeck, K. Drought-Stress-Related Reprogramming of Gene Expression in Barley Involves Differential Histone Modifications at ABA-Related Genes. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24, 12065.

Abstract

Plants respond to drought by major reprogramming of gene expression enabling the plant to survive this threatening environmental condition. One major upstream signal inducing this multifaceted process is the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA). In this report, we investigate the drought response in barley plants (Hordeum vulgare, cv. Morex) at both epigenome and transcriptome levels. Leaves of barley plants after 10 days of drought treatment, when soil water content was decreased by about 40%, were compared to well-watered controls. Due to the drought treatment, chlorophyll content and photosystem II-efficiency were decreased by about 10% and some known drought-related genes were already induced. Global ChIPseq analyses were used to identify genes where histones 3 associated with promoter or gene body were modified with euchromatic K4 trimethylation or K9 acetylation during drought. Using stringent exclusion criteria, 129 genes loaded with H3K4me3 and 2008 genes loaded with H3K9ac in response to drought were identified, indicating that H3K9 acetylation reacts to drought more sensitive than H3K4 trimethylation. Comparison with differentially expressed genes enabled to identify those genes, which are loaded with the euchromatic marks and are induced in response to the drought treatment. The results show that a major part of these genes is involved in ABA-signaling and related pathways. Intriguingly, two members of the protein phosphatase 2C family (PP2Cs), which are involved in the central regulatory machinery of ABA signaling, were also identified by this approach.

Keywords

ABA-related genes; drought stress; epigenetics; euchromatic histone modifications; Hordeum vulgare

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Plant Sciences

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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