Salinity is ubiquitous abiotic stress factor limiting viticulture productivity worldwide. However, the grapevine is vulnerable to salt stress, which severely affects growth and development of the vine. Hence, it is crucial to delve into the salt resistance mechanism and screen out salt-resistance prediction marker genes; we implicated RNA-sequence (RNA-seq) technology to compare the grapevine transcriptome profile to salt stress. Results showed 2472 differentially-expressed genes (DEGs) in total in salt-responsive grapevine leaves, including 1067 up-regulated and 1405 down-regulated DEGs. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) annotations suggested that many DEGs were involved in various defense-related biological pathways, including ROS scavenging, ion transportation, heat shock proteins (HSPs), pathogenesis-related proteins (PRs) and hormone signaling. Furthermore, many DEGs were encoded transcription factors (TFs) and essential regulatory proteins involved in signal transduction by regulating the salt resistance-related genes in grapevine. The antioxidant enzyme analysis showed that salt stress significantly affected the superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione S-transferase (GST) activities in grapevine leaves. Moreover, the uptake and distribution of sodium (Na⁺), potassium (K⁺) and chlorine (Cl⁻) in source and sink tissues of grapevine was significantly affected by salt stress. Finally, the qRT-PCR analysis of DE validated the data and findings were significantly consistent with RNA-seq data, which further assisted in the selection of salt stress-responsive candidate genes in grapevine. This study contributes in new perspicacity into the underlying molecular mechanism of grapevine salt stress-tolerance at the transcriptome level and explore new approaches to applying the gene information in genetic engineering and breeding purposes.

Vitality and survival rate of grape seedlings are crucial factors affecting quality of vineyards. There is no comprehensive study describing accurate evaluation of dormant grapevine seedlings’ vitality and survival rate. The purpose of this study was to explore the possibility of using molecular information to evaluate viability and survival rate of dormant seedlings before transplanting. After bare roots treatment, 1–5 day expression levels of six HKGs in four buds of tetraploid Kyoho grape (Vitis labruscana: V. labrusca × V. vinifera) seedlings were detected by (Sq.) RT-PCR and qRT-PCR for calibration of the molecular method. The results revealed that HKGs expression indicates vitality and survival of plant, higher expression was strongly linked to higher vitality and survival rate, lower expression was associated with lower vitality, and lowest expression was significantly associated with lowest vitality and survival rate. Moreover, DNA and RNA quality can superficially determine seedling qualities. Finally, the survival rate of the seedlings produced in Juxian-Shandong, Laixi-Shandong, Huailai-Hebei, Suizhong-Liaoning, Changli-Hebei, Guanxian-Shandong, and Zhangjiagang-Jiangsu was 100.00%, 100.00%, 100.00%, 100.00%, 100.00%, 87.77%, and 93.33%, respectively. In conclusion, molecular technique is potential approach for promoting gene information to estimate vitality and survival rate of dormant grape seedlings and might contribute to viticulturists’ efforts.