Harnessing the diversity of a lettuce wild relative to identify anthocyanin-related genes transcriptionally responsive to drought stress
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Date
2025
Authors
Medina Lozano, InésGrimplet, Jérôme
Díaz Bermúdez, Aurora
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Abstract
Lettuce is a crop particularly vulnerable to drought. A transcriptomic study in the variety ‘Romired’ and the wild relative Lactuca homblei was conducted to understand the increase in anthocyanins (only significant in L. homblei) in response to drought previously observed. RNA-seq revealed more differentially expressed genes (DEGs), especially upregulated, in the wild species, in which the most abundant and significant GO terms were involved in regulatory processes (including response to water). Anthocyanin synthesis was triggered in L. homblei in response to drought, with 17 genes activated out of the 36 mapped in the phenylpropanoid-flavonoid pathway compared to 7 in ‘Romired’. Nineteen candidate DEGs with the strongest change in expression and correlation with both anthocyanin content and drought were selected and validated by qPCR, all being differentially expressed only in the wild species with the two techniques. Their functions were related to anthocyanins and/or stress response and they harboured 404 and 11 polymorphisms in the wild and cultivated species, respectively. Some wild variants had high or moderate predicted impacts on the respective protein function: a transcription factor that responds to abiotic stresses, a heat shock protein involved in stomatal closure, and a phospholipase participating in anthocyanin accumulation under abiotic stress. These genetic variants could explain the differences in the gene expression patterns between the wild (significantly up/downregulated) and the cultivated (no significant changes) species. The diversity of this crop wild relative for anthocyanin-related genes involved in the response to drought could be exploited to improve lettuce resilience against some adverse climate effects.
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Bibliographic citation
Medina-Lozano, I.; Grimplet, J. and Díaz, A. (2025) Harnessing the diversity of a lettuce wild relative to identify anthocyaninrelated genes transcriptionally responsive to drought stress. Front. Plant Sci. 15:1494339
AGROVOC subjects
Estrés de sequiaLactuca sativa var. longifolia
Especies silvestres afín a las plantas cultivadas
Resiliencia al clima
PCR
Antioxidantes
Other field subjects
Especies Silvestres Afín A Las Plantas CultivadasEstrés De Sequia
Lactuca sativa var. longifolia
Resiliencia al clima
Sponsorship
The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the
research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was
funded by the projects PID2022-138484OR-I00 from the Spanish
Ministry of Science and Innovation and State Research Agency (AEI)
and LMP148_21 from the Government of Aragón; and by the
Operational Programme FEDER Aragón 2023-2025 and 2020-2022,
and the European Social Fund from the European Union (A12-23R:
“Grupo de investigación en fruticultura: caracterización, adaptación y
mejora genética”). IML was supported by a predoctoral contract for
training doctors from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and
Universities (MCIU) and the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI).