Resilience in Hyacinth Bean (Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet): A Combined Approach of Relative Water Content and Gene Expression Analysis for Drought Tolerance.
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Society for Underutilized Legumes
Abstract
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To cope with water deficit, plants have evolved diverse drought tolerance mechanisms that involves
physiological, biochemical and gene regulatory networks for their effective survival. This research
investigated the relative water contents (RWC) and semi-reverse quantitative expression of plasma
membrane intrinsic proteins (PIPs) drought-tolerance genes in Hyacinth bean (HB). Five accessions were
randomly selected based on their seed morphology and were grown in planting buckets filled with
topsoil in a randomized complete block design. After two weeks of seedling growth under normal
conditions, drought stress was induced without water for 21 days in a greenhouse. In the same
experiment, well-watered potted HB seedlings served as controls. Determination of the RWC followed
an established protocol. RNA was isolated from leaf sample of the accessions and mRNA expression
levels of the PIP gene was determined using real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) with GAPDH
(glyceraldehyde – 3- phosphate dehydrogenase) gene as control. The results showed that the RWC of
drought-treated accessions ranged from 26.17% (TLn-6) to 48.78% (TLn-2), while that of control varied
from 49.61% (TLn-2) to 79.07% (TLn-70). The mean cycle quantification for the PIP amplification in the
drought-treated samples ranged from 31.33 ± 0.079 (TLn-2) to 32.02 ± 0.364 (TLn-7) which were found
to be higher than the control (28.63 ± 0.00).The expression level of drought-treated accessions was
higher than that of the control accessions. The expression of PIP in both drought-induced and well
hydrated accessions suggest the presence of drought regulatory genes in HB, thus making the crop a
suitable candidate for climate-smart agriculture in the tropics.
Keywords
QH Natural history, QH301 Biology