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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 76(6)

The role of wheat long intergenic non-coding RNAs in drought stress

Yingchun Yu https://orcid.org/0009-0004-6167-6124 A , Xiaoyu Wang B , Ye Dong B , Yiting Li B , Shiqin Cao A C * and Dongfang Ma https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0724-0870 B *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Biocontrol Engineering Laboratory of Crop Diseases and Pests of Gansu Province, College of Plant Protection, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China. Email: yuyingchun2001@126.com

B Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) Key Laboratory of Sustainable Crop Production in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River (Co-Construction by Ministry and Province), College of Agriculture, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China. Email: 1980399749@qq.com, 2021720806@yangtzeu.edu.cn, 202071655@yangtzeu.edu.cn

C Gansu Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Institute of Plant Protection, Lanzhou 730070, China.

* Correspondence to: caoshiqin6702@163.com, madf@yangtzeu.edu.cn

Handling Editor: Enrico Francia

Crop & Pasture Science 76, CP25043 https://doi.org/10.1071/CP25043
Submitted: 21 February 2025  Accepted: 24 April 2025  Published: 21 May 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing

Abstract

Context

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the world’s most vital food crops. Drought stress is a significant physiological challenge for wheat, leading to reduced productivity. As a polygenic stress, drought poses one of the major threats to crop yields in agriculture.

Aim

Advances in sequencing technology have shown that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in plant growth and stress responses.

Methods

This study analyzed 11 RNA-seq datasets from wheat subjected to drought treatment over various time points. Functional enrichment annotation and quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) analyses were employed to explore the regulatory responses of lincRNAs during drought stress.

Key results

The results identified 740 candidate lincRNAs, which were found to be shorter and have fewer exons compared to mRNAs. Differential expression analysis revealed 310 differentially expressed lincRNAs (DE-lincRNAs) responsive to drought stress.

Conclusions

Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses showed that the lincRNAs and their target mRNAs were enriched in terms and pathways associated with photosystems and photosynthesis. Expression analysis demonstrated a positive correlation between lincRNA expression levels and those of their target genes, suggesting their potential involvement in regulating drought stress in wheat.

Implications

The findings of this study lay the groundwork for future research on the regulatory mechanisms of lincRNAs in wheat stress responses, which is important for the breeding of drought-resistant wheat varieties.

Keywords: differential expression, drought-resistant breeding, drought stress, lincRNAs, lncRNA, regulatory mechanism, target genes, wheat.

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