Early drought-responsive changes in pepper leaves and roots

Drought is one of the major factor that limits crop production and reduces yield. To understand the early response of plants under nearly natural conditions, pepper plants were grown in a greenhouse and drought stressed by withholding water for one week. Plants adapted to the decreasing water content of the substrate by adjustment of their osmotic potential in roots by accumulation of raffinose, glucose, galactinol and proline. In contrast in leaves levels of fructose, sucrose and also galactinol increased. Due to the water deficit cadaverine, putrescine, spermidine and spermine accumulated in leaves whereas the concentration of polyamines was reduced in roots. These polyamines are suggested to rather act as stress protectants than for osmotic adjustment. To understand the molecular basis of the response to this early drought stress better, four suppression subtractive hybridisation libraries from leaves and roots were constructed. Microarray technique was used to identify differentially expressed genes. A total of 109 unique ESTs were detected. The diversity of the putative functions of all identified genes confirms the complexity of the plant response to drought stress. Keywords: Transcription profiling Two-condition experiment in roots and leaves, control leaves (CL) vs. drought-stressed leaves (DL) and control roots (CR) vs. drought-stressed roots (DR). Biological replicates: 4 control (1-4), drought-stressed (1-4), independently grown and harvested. One swap replicate per array.