Transcriptional profiling in dioecious plant Populus cathayana reveals potential and sex-specific molecular adaptations to solar UV-B radiation.. Populus cathayana

Recently, we found a dioecious plant Populus cathayana males possess a greater tolerance to enhanced UV-B radiation than do females. To carry this work forward, comparative transcriptome analyses were carried out. Similar to previous studies, a set of conserved functions and pathways related to UV-B stress were detected in males and females, regardless of the sex. In addition, sex-specific responses via transcriptome remodeling were also detected as shown in the changes of sex-related gene expression occurred in some pathways. For example, a lot of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) involved in amino acid metabolism were mainly up-regulated in males, but down-regulated in females. Moreover, we found some DEGs expressed predominantly or exclusively in one sex, which may directly contribute to sex-related physiological responses. Overall design: 4 samples examined: (i) males exposure to decreased solar UV-B radiation (MC); (ii) females exposure to decreased solar UV-B radiation (FC); (iii) males exposure to ambient solar UV-B radiation (MU); and (iv) females exposure to ambient solar UV-B radiation (FU). Nine plants of each sex were exposed to each treatment, and RNA samples from the 9 individuals were pooled with equal proportion.