Transcriptome Analysis of Heat Shock Factor C2a Over-Expressing Wheat Roots Reveals Ferroptosis-like Cell Death in Heat Stress Recovery

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences Vol. 24; no. 4; p. 3099
• Main Authors: Kalaipandian, Sundaravelpandian, Powell, Jonathan, Karunakaran, Aneesh, Stiller, Jiri, Adkins, Steve, Kage, Udaykumar, Kazan, Kemal, Fleury, Delphine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 04.02.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Accumulation; Agricultural production; Apoptosis; Cell death; climate change; Comparative analysis; Drought; Ferroptosis; Food security; Gene expression; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Genes; Genotypes; Heat; Heat shock; heat shock factor; Heat shock factors; Heat shock proteins; Heat stress; Heat-Shock Response - genetics; Hydrogen peroxide; Hydrogen Peroxide - metabolism; Hydrogen reduction; Iron - metabolism; Lipid peroxidation; Metabolism; Molecular modelling; peroxidases; Physiology; Plant Proteins - genetics; Rain; RNA - metabolism; RNA polymerase; Roots; Seedlings; Survival; Temperature effects; Transcriptome; Transcriptomes; Transgenic plants; Triticum - genetics; Triticum aestivum; Wheat; heat stress; ferroptosis; thermotolerance; peroxidases; wheat; roots; heat shock factor; climate change
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms24043099

Wheat ( L.) growing areas in many regions of the world are subject to heat waves which are predicted to increase in frequency because of climate change. The engineering of crop plants can be a useful strategy to mitigate heat stress-caused yield losses. Previously, we have shown that heat shock factor subclass C ( )-overexpression significantly increased the survival of heat-stressed wheat seedlings. Although previous studies have shown that the overexpression of genes enhanced the survival of plants under heat stress, the molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. To understand the underlying molecular mechanisms involved in this response, a comparative analysis of the root transcriptomes of untransformed control and -overexpressing wheat lines by RNA-sequencing have been performed. The results of RNA-sequencing indicated that the roots of -overexpressing wheat seedlings showed lower transcripts of hydrogen peroxide-producing peroxidases, which corresponds to the reduced accumulation of hydrogen peroxide along the roots. In addition, suites of genes from iron transport and nicotianamine-related gene ontology categories showed lower transcript abundance in the roots of -overexpressing wheat roots than in the untransformed control line following heat stress, which are in accordance with the reduction in iron accumulation in the roots of transgenic plants under heat stress. Overall, these results suggested the existence of ferroptosis-like cell death under heat stress in wheat roots, and that is a key player in this mechanism. To date, this is the first evidence to show that a gene plays a key role in ferroptosis under heat stress in plants. In future, the role of genes could be further studied on ferroptosis in plants to identify root-based marker genes to screen for heat-tolerant genotypes.