4.3 Drought responses of S. krylovii
When plants are subjected to drought stress, they usually reduce
photosynthetic capacity to reduce water consumption, and reduce their
growth and ensure their survival (Dias et al., 2007; Poorter et al.,
2012), and similar results were found in this study (Table 2).
Furthermore, we tried to explore the functioning changing of S.
krylovii facing to heavy drought treatment based on RNA-Seq data. The
significantly enriched pathways by KEGG based on DCGs were glycolysis /
glycoconeogenesis, starch and sucrose metabolism, MAPK signaling
pathway-plant and plant hormone signal transduction, with relative
larger number of genes significantly up-regulated (Table S6 & S7). This
finding indicated that S. krylovii compensated for the damage
under the drought stress condition by continuously enhancing its
metabolic vigor, which was consistent with the drought stress on
Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis ) (Bushman et al., 2021).
Similar pathways of responses to drought stress were found in other
species, such as glycolysis / glycoconeogenesis pathway for okra
(Abelmoschus esculentus ) (Shi et al., 2020), starch and sucrose
metabolism pathway for Verbena bonariensis (Wang et al., 2018),
plant hormone signal transduction pathway for foxtail millet
(Setaria italica ) (Qin et al., 2020), MAPK signaling
pathway-plant for peanut (Arachis hypogaea ) (Zhao et al., 2021).