Natural variation in SbTEF1 gene contributes to salt tolerance in sorghum seedlings

Salt stress is a major constraint to crop productivity and quality, with the limited availability of salt-tolerant genes being a major challenge to breeding programs aimed at enhancing salt tolerance.  Against this backdrop, sorghum, however, displays a remarkable ability to withstand saline conditions. Hence, elucidating the genetic underpinnings of this trait is of great study value.

In a new study published in the Journal of Integrative Agriculture, a team of researchers from China entailed a resequencing of 186 sorghum accessions to perform a genome-wide association study (GWAS) focusing on relative root length (RL) and root fresh weight (RFW) under salt stress conditions.

“We identified eight candidate genes within a co-localized region, among which SbTEF1 — a gene encoding a transcription elongation factor protein — was deemed a potential candidate due to its annotation and expression pattern alterations under salt stress,” shares corresponding author Yufei Zhou, a professor at Shenyang Agricultural University, China.

Further, haplotype analysis, gene cloning, linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis, and allele effect analysis revealed that PAV284, located in the promoter region of SbTEF1, modulated gene expression under salt stress, which, in turn, influenced sorghum seedlings’ salt tolerance. 

“PAV284 holds promise as a genetic marker for selecting salt-tolerant germplasm via marker-assisted breeding, enhancing the development of salt-tolerant sorghum cultivars,” says Prof. Zhou.

###

Contact the author:#Correspondence Yufei Zhou, Tel: +86-24-88487135, E-mail: zhouyufei@syau.edu.cn; Haiqiu Yu, Tel: +86-24-88487135, E-mail: yuhaiqiu@syau.edu.cn

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 200 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).