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High-affinity K⁺ (HKT) transporters which mediate Na⁺-specific transport or Na⁺-K⁺ co-transport play a key role in plant salt tolerance. In our previous functional study in Xenopus oocytes, we demonstrated that the durum wheat TdHKT1;4–1 acts as a Na⁺-selective transporter. Here, we investigated the function of TdHKT1;4–1 and its contribution in sa...
Azotobacter is a diverse genus of free-living soil bacteria that fixes atmospheric nitrogen and act as a biocontrol agent for different phytopathogens. This study utilized the genomic sequences from four different Azotobacter species, comprising thirty strains, to construct the genus pangenome. Through comparative genomics and pangenomics analysis,...
Salinity is a significant threat that causes considerable yield losses in date palm. The root endophytic fungus Piriformospora indica has proven effective in providing salt stress tolerance to host plants. However, the underlying molecular mechanism facilitating the date palm’s response to P. indica inoculation, and its involvement in the salt stre...
In plants, the pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins have been identified as important regulators of biotic and abiotic stresses. PR proteins branch out into 19 different classes (PR1–PR19). Basically, all PR proteins display a well-established method of action, with the notable exception of PR1, which is a member of a large superfamily of proteins wi...
Efficiently regulating growth to adapt to varying resource availability is crucial for organisms, including plants. In particular, the acquisition of essential nutrients is vital for plant development, as a shortage of just one nutrient can significantly decrease crop yield. However, plants constantly experience fluctuations in the presence of mult...
In date palm, the LEA2 genes are of abundance with sixty-two members that are nearly all ubiquitous. However, their functions and interactions with potential target molecules are largely unexplored. In this study, five date palm LEA2 genes, PdLEA2.2, PdLEA2.3, PdLEA2.4, PdLEA2.6, and PdLEA2.7 were cloned, sequenced, and three of them, PdLEA2.2, PdL...
The narrow genomic diversity of modern cultivars is a major bottleneck for enhancing the crop’s salinity stress tolerance. The close relatives of modern cultivated plants, crop wild relatives (CWRs), can be a promising and sustainable resource to broaden the diversity of crops. Advances in transcriptomic technologies have revealed the untapped gene...
Saline groundwater irrigation is commonly used in arid regions of the Middle East and North Africa for date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) cultivation, yet little is known about its impact on root-associated fungal (RAF) communities. We investigated the impact of irrigation water sources (freshwater vs. saline groundwater) on date palm RAF diversity, c...
Endophytic fungi are known to enhance plant growth and performance under salt stress. The current study investigated the growth, as well as biochemical and molecular properties of Phoenix dactylifera colonized with the mutualistic fungus Piriformospora indica, under control and salinity stress. Our findings indicated an increase in the plant biomas...
Genetic modification of crops has substantially focused on improving traits for desirable outcomes. It has resulted in the development of crops with enhanced yields, quality, and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. With the advent of introducing favorable traits into crops, biotechnology has created a path for the involvement of genetically m...
Saline water irrigation has been used in date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) agriculture as an alternative to non-saline water due to water scarcity in hyper-arid environments. However, the knowledge pertaining to saline water irrigation impact on the root-associated bacterial communities of arid agroecosystems is scarce. In this study, we investiga...
In response to various environmental stresses, plants have evolved a wide range of defense mechanisms, resulting in the overexpression of a series of stress-responsive genes. Among them, there is certain set of genes that encode for intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) that repair and protect the plants from damage caused by environmental stres...
In response to various environmental stresses, plants have evolved a wide range of defense mechanisms, resulting in the overexpression of a series of stress-responsive genes. Among them, there is certain set of genes that encode for intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) that repair and protect the plants from damage caused by environmental stres...
Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is a major crop species grown in the arid lands of the Middle East and North Africa, contributing to food security. Soil in the desert oases is relatively poor and the increased salinity of the groundwater used for irrigation has intensified the pressure on the agroecosystem productivity. Plants host large communi...
HKT transporters from different plant species have been shown to play important role in plant response to salt. In previous work, TmHKT1;4-A2 gene from Triticum monococcum has been characterized as a major gene for Nax1 QTL (Tounsi et al. Plant Cell Physiol 57:2047–2057, 2016). So far, little is known about its regulatory mechanism. In this study,...
Abstract HKT transporters from different plant species have been shown to play important role in plant response to salt. In previous work, TmHKT1;4-A2 gene from Triticum monococcum has been characterized as a major gene for Nax1 QTL (Tounsi et al. Plant Cell Physiol 57:2047–2057, 2016). So far, little is known about its regulatory mechanism. In thi...
Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is a socio-economically important crop in the Middle East and North Africa and a major contributor to food security in arid regions of the world. P. dactylifera is both drought and salt tolerant, but recent water shortages and increases in groundwater and soil salinity have threatened the continued productivity of...
Wheat is one of the most important crop grown worldwide, and especially in the Mediterranean basin, durum wheat is the most used for typical food industry. Due to the variable climate conditions, one of the most important targets for breeders in these areas is the identification of high yielding genotypes. The objective of the present study was to...
In semiarid Mediterranean agroecosystems, drought and salinity are the main abiotic stresses hampering wheat productivity and yield instability. Abscisic acid, stress, and ripening (ASR) are small plant proteins and play important roles in different biological processes. In the present study, the TtASR1 gene was isolated and characterized for the f...
Date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) are an important fruit crop of arid regions of the Middle East and North Africa. Despite its importance, few genomic resources exist for date palms, hampering evolutionary genomic studies of this perennial species. Here we report an improved long-read genome assembly for P. dactylifera that is 772.3 Mb in length, wi...
In this study, we generated transgenic durum wheat cv. Maali overexpressing the wheat plasma membrane aquaporin TdPIP2;1 gene under the control of PrTdPIP2;1 promoter or under the constitutive PrCaMV35S promoter. Histochemical analysis of the fusion PrTdPIP2;1::TdPIP2;1::GusA in wheat plants showed that the β-glucuronidase (GUS) activity was detect...
In a previous report, a gene encoding a durum wheat lipid transfer protein, TdLTP4, was characterised as induced by abiotic and biotic stresses. In the present work, we investigated the regulation of the gene TdLTP4. A TdLTP4 promoter (PrTdLTP4) region of around 868-bp was isolated and sequenced. Its analysis revealed the presence of several DNA bo...
HKT transporters which mediate Na⁺-specific transport or Na⁺–K⁺ co-transport, play an important role in protecting plants from salinity stress by preventing Na⁺-over-accumulation in leaves. In this work, a 1508-bp genomic fragment upstream of the TmHKT1;4-A1 translated sequence from Triticum monococcum has been isolated, cloned, and designated as t...
Sodium (Na⁺) accumulation in the cytosol will result in ion homeostasis imbalance and toxicity of transpiring leaves. Studies of salinity tolerance in the diploid wheat ancestor Triticum monococcum showed that HKT1;5-like gene was a major gene in the QTL for salt tolerance, named Nax2. In the present study, we were interested in investigating the m...
We have shown previously that the durum wheat TdSOS1 excludes Na+ and Li+ ions outside cells. Moreover, this protein is activated by Arabidopsis kinase SOS2 through phosphorylation. The elimination of both SOS2 phosphorylation sites and the auto-inhibitory domain produces a hyperactive TdSOS1∆972 form, which have a maximal activity independent from...
Salt stress responses implicate a complex
mechanism and differ from plant species to another. In this
study, we analyzed the physiological, biochemical and
molecular responses to salt stress of the diploid wheat (T.
monococcum) and compared to the tetraploid wheat (T.
durum). Our results showed that the diploid wheat cultivar
(cv. Turkey) is relati...
Soil salinization is a major threat to agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions, where water scarcity and inadequate drainage of irrigated lands severely reduce crop yield. Salt accumulation inhibits plant growth and reduces the ability to uptake water and nutrients, leading to osmotic or water-deficit stress. Salt is also causing injury of the yo...
Dehydrins (DHNs) are among the most common proteins accumulated in plants under water-related stress.
They typically contain at least three conserved sequences designated as the Y-, S- and K-segments. The present work
aims to highlight the role of the K-segments in plant tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. For this purpose, transgenic
Arabido...
Abstract. Dehydrins (DHNs) are among the most common proteins accumulated in plants under water-related stress.
They typically contain at least three conserved sequences designated as the Y-, S- and K-segments. The present work
aims to highlight the role of the K-segments in plant tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. For this purpose, transgen...
TmHKT1;4-A1 and TmHKT1;4-A2 are two Na+ transporter genes that have been identified as associated to the
salt tolerance Nax1 locus found in a durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum) line issued from a cross
with T. monococcum. In the present study, we were interested in getting clues on the molecular mechanisms
underpinning this salt tolera...
Fusarium head blight (FHB) caused by Fusarium graminearum is a worldwide destructive disease affecting cereals such as wheat. FHB resistance is a quantitative trait, and information for FHB resistance QTLs in wheat is available. However, little is known about genes underlying the FHB resistance QTL regions. Using a computational approach in this st...
Date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) are the most significant perennial crop in arid regions of the Middle East and North Africa. Here, we present a comprehensive catalogue of approximately seven million single nucleotide polymorphisms in date palms based on whole genome re-sequencing of a collection of 62 cultivars. Population structure analysis indic...
Supplementary Figures 1-7 and Supplementary Tables 1-10
Candidate genes in flowering time, sugar metabolism, fruit maturation, 25 and disease resistance pathways.
Lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) are members of the family of pathogenesis-related proteins (PR-14) that are believed to be involved in plant defense responses. In this study, we report the isolation and characterization of a novel gene TdLTP4 encoding an LTP protein from durum wheat [Triticum turgidum L. subsp. Durum Desf.]. Molecular Phylogeny anal...
Dehydrins are a group of plant proteins that have been shown to be involved in the tolerance of various abiotic stresses such as dehydration, salinity, and low temperature. We have previously shown that the K-segments of the wheat dehydrin DHN-5 are essential for the protection of enzyme activities in vitro. In this study, we further investigate th...
Intron retention in transcripts and the presence of 5ʹ and 3ʹ splice sites within these introns mediate alternate splicing, which is widely observed in animals and plants. Here, functional characterisation of the K+ transporter, HvHKT2;1, with stably retained introns from barley (Hordeum vulgare) in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), and transcript...
Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) proteins, a group of hydrophilic proteins, have been linked to survival in plants and animals in periods of stress, putatively through safeguarding enzymatic function and prevention of aggregation in times of dehydration/heat. Yet despite decades of effort, the molecular-level mechanisms defining this protective fu...
Chourouk Hamla Drought is a worldwide constrains affecting plant growth and productivity. This problem is becoming a more serious threat to the high-quality crop production within a changing climate. Drought triggers a variety of plant responses by modifying a range of genes expression. The aim of this work was to study two durum wheat genotypes (W...
Phytic acid (PA) is the main phosphorus storage form in plant seeds. It is recognized as an anti-nutrient for humans and non-ruminant
animals, as well as one of the major sources of phosphorus that contributes to eutrophication. Therefore, engineering plants
with low PA content without affecting plant growth capacity has become a major focus in pla...
Comparative functional analysis of two wheat Na + /H + antiporter SOS1 promoters in Arabidopsis thaliana under various stress conditions Abstract The bread wheat TaSOS1 has been previously shown to be induced by salt stress treatment. To further investigate the regulation of the TaSOS1 gene, the two geno-mic fragments Pr SOS1-AB and Pr SOS1-D have...
The use of analytical biochemical techniques with different separation properties allows us to better understand the proteome. To demonstrate this we have used two different methodologies to analyze embryos from a Tunisian cultivar of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.), variety Oum Rabiaa. We compared conventional 2D electrophoresis with liquid-pha...
Comparative functional analysis of two wheat Na + /H + antiporter SOS1 promoters in Arabidopsis thaliana under various stress conditions Abstract The bread wheat TaSOS1 has been previously shown to be induced by salt stress treatment. To further investigate the regulation of the TaSOS1 gene, the two geno-mic fragments Pr SOS1-AB and Pr SOS1-D have...
In a previous work, we demonstrated that expression of TdPIP2;1 in Xenopus oocytes resulted in an increase in Pf compared to water injected oocytes. Phenotypic analyses of transgenic tobacco plants expressing TdPIP2;1 generated a tolerance phenotype towards drought and salinity stresses. To elucidate its stress tolerance mechanism at the transcript...
There is a growing imbalance between supply and demand of the major cereals,
viz., wheat, rice and maize, which together provide 70 % of the calorifi c intake for
the world’s population. Whilst in recent years, genetic and agronomic developments
have steadily increased the production of these crops, the rate of increase is still less
than that need...
Plant tolerance to salinity constraint involves complex and integrated functions including control of Na+ uptake, translocation, and compartmentalization. Several members of the high-affinity K+ transporter (HKT) family, which comprises plasma-membrane transporters permeable to K+ and Na+ or to Na+ only, have been shown to play major roles in plant...
Key message
Expression of a truncated form of wheat TdSOS1 in Arabidopsis exhibited an improved salt tolerance. This finding provides new hints about this protein that can be considered as a salt tolerance determinant.
Abstract
The SOS signaling pathway has emerged as a key mechanism in preserving the homeostasis of Na+ and K+ under saline conditio...
A wheat dehydrin gene (DHN-5) is inducible by either treatment with abscisic acid (ABA) or by abiotic stress such as drought and salinity. To further investigate the regulation of the gene, a 1,128-bp genomic fragment upstream of the DHN-5 translated sequence has been isolated, cloned, and designated as the ''PrDHN-5'' promoter. Sequence analysis o...
##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##
##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##
Response of two genotypes of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), Mahon-Demias (MD) and Hidhab (HD1220), to mature embryo culture, callus production, and in vitro salt and heat tolerance was evaluated. For assessment of genotypes to salt and heat tolerance, growing morphogenic calli were exposed to different concentrations of NaCl (0, 5, 10, and 15 g·L...
The wheat dehydrin DHN-5 has been previously shown to exhibit heat protecting effect on enzymatic activities. In order to understand the molecular mechanism by which DHN-5 exerts its protective function, we performed an approach to dissect the functional domains of DHN-5 responsible for this feature. In two distinct enzymatic assays, we found that...
Phosphogypsum (PG) is a by-product of the phosphorus-fertiliser industry and represents an environmental concern since it contains pollutants such as cadmium (Cd). We have recently shown that the overexpression of a proton pump gene (TaVP1) in transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) led to an enhanced Cd tolerance and accumulation. The aim of this s...
Biomass utilization is increasingly considered as a practical way for sustainable energy supply and long-term environment care around the world. In concerns with food security, starch or sugar-based bioethanol and edible-oil-derived biodiesel are severely restricted for large scale production. Alternatively, conversion of lignocellulosic residues f...
The durum wheat TMKP1 gene encodes a MAP kinase phosphatase. When overexpressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, TMKP1 leads to salt stress tolerance (especially LiCl ), which is dependent on the phosphatase activity of the protein. The TMKP1-associated Li(+) resistance is restricted to a galactose-containing medium. Interestingly, this salt tolerance...
Adaptation of plants to salt stress requires cellular ion homeostasis involving net intracellular Na + and Cl − uptake and subsequent vacuolar compartmentalization without toxic ion accumulation in the cytosol. Sodium ions can enter the cell through several low-and high-affinity K + carriers. Some members of the HKT family function as sodium transp...
Abiotic stress tolerance of plants is a very complex trait and involves multiple physiological and biochemical processes. Thus, the improvement of plant stress tolerance should involve pyramiding of multiple genes. In the present study, we report the construction and application of a bicistronic system, involving the internal ribosome entry site (I...
LEA (late embryogenesis abundant) proteins participate in plant stress tolerance responses, but the mechanisms by which protection occurs are not fully understood. In the present work the unfolded proteins from maize dry embryos were analyzed by mass spectrometry. Twenty embryo proteins were identified, and among them 13 corresponded to LEA-type pr...
Cadmium (Cd) is considered an extremely significant pollutant due to its high toxicity to many organisms. Plants have evolved several mechanisms to cope with Cd, the most important of which is vacuolar sequestration. Cadmium can be directly transported into vacuoles by cations/H(+) exchangers, such as CAXs, which are energized by the pH gradient es...
Dehydrins (DHNs), or group 2 LEA (Late Embryogenesis Abundant) proteins, play a fundamental role in plant response and adaptation to abiotic stresses. They accumulate typically in maturing seeds or are induced in vegetative tissues following salinity, dehydration, cold, and freezing stress. The generally accepted classification of dehydrins is base...
Plant plasma membrane intrinsic proteins (PIP) cluster in two phylogenetic groups, PIP1 and PIP2 that have different water channel activities when expressed in Xenopus oocytes. PIP2s induce a marked increase of the membrane osmotic water-permeability coefficient (P(f)), whereas PIP1s are generally inactive. Here we report the cloning of two durum w...
We have identified a plasma membrane Na(+)/H(+) exchanger from durum wheat, designated TdSOS1. Heterologous expression of TdSOS1 in a yeast strain lacking endogenous Na(+) efflux proteins showed complementation of the Na(+)- and Li(+)-sensitive phenotype by a mechanism involving cation efflux. Salt tolerance conferred by TdSOS1 was maximal when co-...
The authors have equally contributed to this work. Abstract In many plant species, salt sensitivity is associated with the accumulation of sodium (Na +) in photosynthetic tissues. Na + uptake to leaves involves a series of transport steps and for which only few candidates' genes have been so far characterized. In this study, we provide a physiologi...
We have previously reported that transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing the wheat dehydrin DHN-5 show enhanced tolerance
to osmotic stresses. In order to understand the mechanisms through which DHN-5 exerts this effect, we performed transcriptome
profiling using the Affymetrix ATH1 microarray. Our data show an altered expression of 77 genes i...
Multiple biotic and abiotic environmental factors may constitute stresses that affect plant growth and yield in crop species. Advances in plant physiology, genetics, and molecular biology have greatly improved our understanding of plant responses to stresses. This book details on technologies that have emerged during the past decade and have been u...
The authors have equally contributed to this work. Abstract In many plant species, salt sensitivity is associated with the accumulation of sodium (Na +) in photosynthetic tissues. Na + uptake to leaves involves a series of transport steps and for which only few candidates' genes have been so far characterized. In this study, we provide a physiologi...
Drought and salinity are major constraints on crop production and food security, and adversely affect entire countries over several years and result in serious social, economic, and environmental cost. Wheat production in the Mediterranean region is limited mainly by the availability of water resources. Water-deficit stress caused by drought and so...
Drought and salinity are major constraints on crop production and food security, and adversely affect entire countries over several years and result in serious social, economic, and environmental cost. Wheat production in the Mediterranean region is limited mainly by the availability of water resources. Water-deficit stress caused by drought and so...