Open Access

ARTICLE

Transcription Factors and Retained Intron Act Vital Roles in Cadmium Stress Response of Medicinal Model Plant Salvia miltiorrhiza

Jun Yuan¹, Rongpeng Liu⁴, Xiaoyun Wang^3,*, Haihui Fu^2,*

1 College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (College of Life Sciences), Jiangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanchang, 330004, China
2 School of Agricultural Sciences, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, 330045, China
3 Research Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine Resources and Ethnic Minority Medicine, Jiangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanchang, 330004, China
4 School of Pharmacy, Jiangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanchang, 330004, China

* Corresponding Authors: Xiaoyun Wang. Email: ; Haihui Fu. Email:

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2024, 93(9), 2267-2284. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2024.055338

Received 24 July 2024; Accepted 16 August 2024; Issue published 30 September 2024

Abstract

Cadmium (Cd) has seriously affected the quality of traditional Chinese medicinal material Salvia miltiorrhiza in recent years, threatening human health. The physiological and metabolic profiles of S. miltiorrhiza in response to Cd stress have been revealed in previous studies. However, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation in response to different degrees of Cd (0, 25, 50, and 100 mg/kg) stress in S. miltiorrhiza remains unclear. Here, transcriptome atlas in S. miltiorrhiza under different degrees of Cd Stress was unveiled using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq). These results showed that the profiles of gene expression were different in the response to Cd treatment. Defense response-related biological processes were involved in differentially expressed genes (DEGs). In total, 1966 genes were identified as transcription factors (TFs) with seven expressed trends. Retained intron (RI) was the major phenomenon. Targeted genes of intron splicing factors were identified via weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). All of these indicated that transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulations were involved in response to Cd stress in S. miltiorrhiza. Our study will provide the most comprehensive resource for studying heavy metals in traditional Chinese medicine plants.

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Keywords

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Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material File

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