Transcriptomic Analysis of Rice Plants Overexpressing PsGAPDH in Response to Salinity Stress

In plants, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is a main enzyme in the glycolytic pathway. It plays an essential role in glycerolipid metabolism and response to various stresses. To examine the function of PsGAPDH ( GAPDH) in response to abiotic stress, we generated transgenic rice plants with single-copy/intergenic/homozygous overexpression ( -OX) and investigated their responses to salinity stress. Seedling growth and germination rates of -OX were significantly increased under salt stress conditions compared to those of the wild type. To elucidate the role of -OX in salt stress tolerance of rice, an Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform was used to analyze transcriptome profiles of leaves under salt stress. Analysis results of sequencing data showed that 1124 transcripts were differentially expressed. Using the list of differentially expressed genes (DEGs), functional enrichment analyses of DEGs such as Gene Ontology (GO) terms and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways were performed. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis revealed that unigenes exhibiting differential expression were involved in starch and sucrose metabolism. Interestingly, ( ) genes, of which expression was enhanced by abiotic stress, showed a significant difference in -OX. Findings of this study suggest that PsGAPDH plays a role in the adaptation of rice plants to salt stress.