Grapevine is a perennial crop often cultivated by grafting a scion cultivar on a suitable rootstock. Rootstocks influence scions, particularly with regard to water uptake and vigor. Therefore, one of the possibilities to adapt viticulture to the extended drought stress periods is to select rootstocks conferring increased tolerance to drought. However, the molecular mechanisms associated with the ability of rootstock/scion combination to influence grape berry metabolism under drought stress are still poorly understood. The transcriptomic changes induced by drought stress in grape berries (cv. Pinot noir) from vines grafted on either 110R (drought tolerant) or 125AA (drought sensitive) rootstock were compared. The experiments were conducted in the vineyard for two years and two grape berry developmental stages (50% and 100 % veraison. The genome-wide microarray approach showed that water stress strongly impacts gene expression in the berries, through ontology categories that cover cell wall metabolism, primary and secondary metabolism, signalling, stress, and hormones, and that some of these effects strongly depend on the rootstock genotype. Indeed, under drought stress, berries from vines grafted on 110R displayed a different transcriptional response compared to 125AA concerning genes related to jasmonate, phenylpropanoid metabolism and PR-proteins. The data also suggests a link between jasmonate and secondary metabolism in water-stressed berries. Overall, genes related to secondary metabolism and jasmonate are more induced and/or less repressed by drought stress in the berries grafted on the drought-sensitive rootstock 125AA. These rootstock-dependent gene expression changes are relevant for berry composition and sensory properties.
Overall design
48 samples, three replicates for each rootstock-stage-treatment-year combination.
Mariam Berdeja, Philippe Nicolas1, Christian Kappel, Zhan Wu Dai, Ghislaine Hilbert, Anthony Peccoux, Magali Lafontaine, Nathalie Ollat, Eric Gome and Serge Delrot. Water limitation and rootstock genotype interact to alter grapeberry metabolism through transcriptome reprogramming. Horticulture Research (2015) 2, 15012; http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/hortres.2015.12
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