High-throughput sequencing (RNA-Seq) analysis the effect of low concentration of SA (LCSA) application on methyl jasmonate (MeJA)-induced leaf senescence

Here, the effect of low concentration of SA (LCSA) application on MeJA-induced leaf senescence was assessed by high-throughput sequencing (RNA-Seq). The results showed that LCSA did not have significant dominant effects on the genetic regulatory pathways of basal metabolism like nitrogen metabolism, photosynthesis and glycolysis. Interestingly, using interaction network analysis of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that exclusively induced by MeJA together with LCSA, several clusters including autophagy-related (ATG) network were identified. RT-qPCR confirmed that the expression of most of the determined ATG genes were upregulated by LCSA. In contrast to wild type (Col-0), LCSA cannot alleviate the leaf yellowing phenotype in autophagy defective mutants (atg5-1 and atg7-2) upon MeJA treatment. Collectively, our work revealed up-regulation of autophagy by LCSA as a key regulator to alleviate MeJA-induced leaf senescence.