Differential expression of LEA-genes in chickpeas during drought

  • N. E. Volkova Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture of the NAAS of Ukraine, 24 Maiatska doroha St., Hlibodarske village, Odesa district, Odesa region, 67667, Ukraine; Odesa State Agricultural Experimental Station of Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture of the NAAS of Ukraine, 24 Maiatska doroha St., Hlibodarske village, Odesa district, Odesa region, 67667, Ukraine https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9333-4872
  • G. I. Slishchuk Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture of the NAAS of Ukraine, 24 Maiatska doroha St., Hlibodarske village, Odesa district, Odesa region, 67667, Ukraine; Odesa State Agricultural Experimental Station of Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture of the NAAS of Ukraine, 24 Maiatska doroha St., Hlibodarske village, Odesa district, Odesa region, 67667, Ukraine https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4245-8557
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7124/visnyk.utgis.23.1-2.1775
Keywords: chickpea, drought tolerance, LEA genes, expression

Abstract

Aim. To assess the role of LEA genes in chickpea by calculating the differential expression of the CapLEA-1 and CapLEA-2 genes under simulated drought conditions. Methods. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted in R (version 4.3.3) to evaluate the effects of genotype and growth conditions on the expression levels of CapLEA-1 and CapLEA-2, as well as their interaction; for post-hoc comparisons, the TukeyHSD() function from the base stats package was used. Twelve transcriptomes from the GenBank database were used, obtained from drought-sensitive and drought-resistant chickpea genotypes under control and simulated drought conditions. Results. The expression levels of CapLEA-1 and CapLEA-2 were found to be affected by stress conditions and genotype, though the degree of influence differed. For CapLEA-1, only trends towards genotype (p = 0.0940) and growth condition (p = 0.0639) effects were observed without significant interaction, whereas for CapLEA-2, growth conditions had a significant effect (p = 0.0444), while genotype and factor interaction only approached significance. Conclusions. ANOVA results indicated that the expression of CapLEA-1 and CapLEA-2 is influenced by stress and genotype, but to different extents: for CapLEA-1, only tendencies without significant interaction were noted, while for CapLEA-2, growth conditions had a significant effect (p = 0.0444). Post-hoc analysis confirmed increased expression of CapLEA-2 under stress conditions, suggesting its more active role in stress response and potential functional specificity relative to CapLEA-1.

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