The effects of drought stress on leaf gene expression during flowering in blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum l.)

This study provides genome expression analyses from the blackcurrant cultivar ‘Ben Gairn’ after five days of drought stress. RNA Sequencing (RNA-Seq) data was utilized to generate a non-redundant set of 40,225 predicted transcripts used to design a custom Ribes microarray. A set of 2,115 differentially expressed genes were identified during drought treatment; 429 of these genes were up-regulated, with 263 showing homology to unique Arabidop-sis thaliana (At) accessions, and 1,686 genes were down-regulated, with 675 unique At numbers. The Arabidopsis homologs were analysed for enrichment of GO (gene ontology) terms using the Term Enrichment Tool. This showed a number of GO terms highly enriched in the drought up-regulated and down-regulated gene lists in GO categories associated with molecular function, biological process and cellular component. The identification of several hormone metabolism, cell wall, cell cycle, and transcription factor genes indicated that they could play an important role in the drought stress tolerance response. The results provide relevant information for focusing future studies with the aim to develop drought tolerant cultivars for sustainable production.