Physiological and metabolic changes of purslane (Portulaca oleracea L.) in response to drought, heat and combined stresses

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea L.) is a fleshy herbaceous plant. So far, little information is available on the response of this plant to combined drought and heat stress. In this study, changes in physiological and metabolic levels were characterized after treatments with drought, heat and combined stresses. Both individual and combined stress treatments increased malondialdehyde (MDA), electrolyte leakage (EL), O2•− and activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), while declined chlorophyll content. No significant differences were found between control and treatments in leaf water content (LWC) and catalase (CAT) activity. Additionally, 37 metabolic compounds were detected in purslane. Through pathway analysis, 17 metabolites were directly involved in the glycolysis metabolic pathway. The present study indicated that combined drought and heat stress caused more serious damage in purslane than individual stress. To survive, purslane has a high capability to cope with environmental stress conditions through activation of physiological and metabolic pathways

Citrus PH5-like H+-ATPase genes: identification and transcript analysis to investigate their possible relationship with citrate accumulation in fruits

PH5 is a petunia gene that encodes a plasma membrane H+-ATPase and determines the vacuolar pH. The citrate content of fruit cell vacuoles influences citrus organoleptic qualities. Although citrus could have PH5-like homologs that are involved in citrate accumulation, the details are still unknown. In this study, extensive data-mining with the PH5 sequence and PCR amplification confirmed that there are at least eight PH5-like genes (CsPH1-8) in the citrus genome. CsPHs have a molecular mass of approximately 100 kDa, and they have high similarity to PhPH5, AtAHA10 or AtAHA2 (from 64.6% to 80.9%). They contain 13-21 exons and 12-20 introns and were evenly distributed into four subgroups of the P3A-subfamily (CsPH1, CsPH2, and CsPH3 in Group I, CsPH4 and CsPH5 in Group II, CsPH6 in Group IV, and CsPH7 and CsPH8 in Group III together with PhPH5). A transcript analysis showed that CsPH1, 3, and 4 were predominantly expressed in mature leaves, whereas CsPH2 and 7 were predominantly expressed in roots, CsPH5 and 6 were predominantly expressed in flowers, and CsPH8 was predominantly expressed in fruit juice sacs. Moreover, the CsPH transcript profiles differed between orange and pummelo, as well as between high-acid and low-acid cultivars. The low-acid orange ‘Honganliu’ exhibits low transcript levels of CsPH3, CsPH4, CsPH5, and CsPH8, whereas the acid-free pummelo has only a low transcript level of CsPH8. In addition, ABA injection increased the citrate content significantly, which was accompanied by the obvious induction of CsPH2, 6, 7, and 8 transcript levels. Taken together, we suggest that CsPH8 seems likely to regulate citrate accumulation in the citrus fruit vacuole