Salinity is one of the most serious factors limiting the productivity of agricultural crops, with adverse effects on germination, plant vigor, and crop yield. This salinity may be natural or induced by agricultural activities such as irrigation or the use of certain types of fertilizer. The most detrimental effect of salinity stress is the accumulation of Na⁺ and Cl⁻ ions in tissues of plants exposed to soils with high NaCl concentrations. The entry of both Na⁺ and Cl⁻ into the cells causes severe ion imbalance, and excess uptake might cause significant physiological disorder(s). High Na⁺ concentration inhibits the uptake of K⁺, which is an element for plant growth and development that results in lower productivity and may even lead to death. The genetic analyses revealed K⁺ and Na⁺ transport systems such as SOS1, which belong to the CBL gene family and play a key role in the transport of Na⁺ from the roots to the aerial parts in the Arabidopsis plant. In this review, we mainly discuss the roles of alkaline cations K⁺ and Na⁺, Ion homeostasis-transport determinants, and their regulation. Moreover, we tried to give a synthetic overview of soil salinity, its effects on plants, and tolerance mechanisms to withstand stress.

Fifteen transcription factors in the CAMTA (calmodulin binding transcription activator) family of soybean were reported to differentially regulate in multiple stresses; however, their functional analyses had not yet been attempted. To characterize their role in stresses, we first comprehensively analyzed the GmCAMTA family in silico and thereafter determined their expression pattern under drought. The bioinformatics analysis revealed multiple stress-related cis-regulatory elements including ABRE, SARE, G-box and W-box, 10 unique miRNA (microRNA) targets in GmCAMTA transcripts and 48 proteins in GmCAMTAs’ interaction network. We then cloned the 2769 bp CDS (coding sequence) of GmCAMTA12 in an expression vector and overexpressed in soybean and Arabidopsis through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The T3 (Transgenic generation 3) stably transformed homozygous lines of Arabidopsis exhibited enhanced tolerance to drought in soil as well as on MS (Murashige and Skoog) media containing mannitol. In their drought assay, the average survival rate of transgenic Arabidopsis lines OE5 and OE12 (Overexpression Line 5 and Line 12) was 83.66% and 87.87%, respectively, which was ~30% higher than that of wild type. In addition, the germination and root length assays as well as physiological indexes such as proline and malondialdehyde contents, catalase activity and leakage of electrolytes affirmed the better performance of OE lines. Similarly, GmCAMTA12 overexpression in soybean promoted drought-efficient hairy roots in OE chimeric plants as compare to that of VC (Vector control). In parallel, the improved growth performance of OE in Hoagland-PEG (polyethylene glycol) and on MS-mannitol was revealed by their phenotypic, physiological and molecular measures. Furthermore, with the overexpression of GmCAMTA12, the downstream genes including AtAnnexin5, AtCaMHSP, At2G433110 and AtWRKY14 were upregulated in Arabidopsis. Likewise, in soybean hairy roots, GmELO, GmNAB and GmPLA1-IId were significantly upregulated as a result of GmCAMTA12 overexpression and majority of these upregulated genes in both plants possess CAMTA binding CGCG/CGTG motif in their promoters. Taken together, we report that GmCAMTA12 plays substantial role in tolerance of soybean against drought stress and could prove to be a novel candidate for engineering soybean and other plants against drought stress. Some research gaps were also identified for future studies to extend our comprehension of Ca-CaM-CAMTA-mediated stress regulatory mechanisms.

Soybean (Glycine max L.) is one of the most important oil crops in the world. It is desirable to increase oil yields from soybean, and so this has been a major goal of oilseed engineering. However, it is still uncertain how many genes and which genes are involved in lipid biosynthesis. Here, we evaluated changes in gene expression over the course of seed development using Illumina (formerly Solexa) RNA-sequencing. Tissues at 15 days after flowering (DAF) served as the control, and a total of 11592, 16594, and 16255 differentially expressed unigenes were identified at 35, 55, and 65 DAF, respectively. Gene Ontology analyses detected 113 co-expressed unigenes associated with lipid biosynthesis. Of these, 15 showed significant changes in expression levels (log₂fold values ≥ 1) during seed development. Pathway analysis revealed 24 co-expressed transcripts involved in lipid biosynthesis and fatty acid biosynthesis pathways. We selected 12 differentially expressed genes and analyzed their expressions using qRT-PCR. The results were consistent with those obtained from Solexa sequencing. These results provide a comprehensive molecular biology background for research on soybean seed development, particularly with respect to the process of oil accumulation. All of the genes identified in our research have significance for breeding soybeans with increased oil contents.

Background: Drought conditions adversely affect soybean growth, resulting in severe yield losses worldwide. Increasing experimental evidence indicates miRNAs are important post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. However, the drought-responsive molecular mechanism underlying miRNA–mRNA interactions remains largely uncharacterized in soybean. Meanwhile, the miRNA-regulated drought response pathways based on multi-omics approaches remain elusive. Results: We combined sRNA, transcriptome and degradome sequencing to elucidate the complex regulatory mechanism mediating soybean drought resistance. One-thousand transcripts from 384 target genes of 365 miRNAs, which were enriched in the peroxisome, were validated by degradome-seq. An integrated analysis showed 42 miRNA–target pairs exhibited inversely related expression profiles. Among these pairs, a strong induction of gma-miR398c as a major gene negatively regulates multiple peroxisome-related genes (GmCSD1a/b, GmCSD2a/b/c and GmCCS). Meanwhile, we detected that alternative splicing of GmCSD1a/b might affect soybean drought tolerance by bypassing gma-miR398c regulation. Overexpressing gma-miR398c in Arabidopsis thaliana L. resulted in decreased percentage germination, increased leaf water loss, and reduced survival under water deficiency, which displayed sensitivity to drought during seed germination and seedling growth. Furthermore, overexpressing gma-miR398c in soybean decreased GmCSD1a/b, GmCSD2a/b/c and GmCCS expression, which weakened the ability to scavenge O₂^.−, resulting in increased relative electrolyte leakage and stomatal opening compared with knockout miR398c and wild-type soybean under drought conditions. Conclusion: The study indicates that gma-miR398c negatively regulates soybean drought tolerance, and provides novel insights useful for breeding programs to improve drought resistance by CRISPR technology.

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.), an important traditional Chinese medicine, is cultured widely for its pharmacological effects, but little is known regarding the genes related to the metabolic regulation of the safflower’s yellow pigment. To investigate genes related to safflor yellow biosynthesis, 454 pyrosequencing of flower RNA at different developmental stages was performed, generating large databases.In this study, we analyzed 454 sequencing data from different flowering stages in safflower. In total, 1,151,324 raw reads and 1,140,594 clean reads were produced, which were assembled into 51,591 unigenes with an average length of 679 bp and a maximum length of 5109 bp. Among the unigenes, 40,139 were in the early group, 39,768 were obtained from the full group and 28,316 were detected in both samples. With the threshold of “log2 ratio ≥ 1”, there were 34,464 differentially expressed genes, of which 18,043 were up-regulated and 16,421 were down-regulated in the early flower library. Based on the annotations of the unigenes, 281 pathways were predicted. We selected 12 putative genes and analyzed their expression levels using quantitative real time-PCR. The results were consistent with the 454 sequencing results. In addition, the expression of chalcone synthase, chalcone isomerase and anthocyanidin synthase, which are involved in safflor yellow biosynthesis and safflower yellow pigment (SYP) content, were analyzed in different flowering periods, indicating that their expression levels were related to SYP synthesis. Moreover, to further confirm the results of the 454 pyrosequencing, full-length cDNA of chalcone isomerase (CHI) and anthocyanidin synthase (ANS) were cloned from safflower petal by RACE (Rapid-amplification of cDNA ends) method according to fragment of the transcriptome.