Transcriptional profiling analysis in Populus yunnanensis provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of sexual differences in plant salinity tolerance

In the present study, we compared transcriptional response to salinity between male and female individuals of Populus yunnanensis. We found that several functional groups of genes involved in important pathways were differentially expressed, including photosynthesis-related genes which were mainly up-regulated in males but down-regulated in females. This gene expression pattern is consistent with physiological observation that salinity inhibited photosynthetic capacity more in females than in males. In conclusion, our study provided molecular evidence of sexual differences in poplar salinity tolerance. Identified sex-related genes in salinity tolerance and their functional groups will enhance our understanding of sexual differences to salinity stress at the transcription level. Overall design: 4 samples examined: males without salinity stress, males exposed to salinity stress, females without salinity stress and females exposed to salinity stress. Nine plants of each sex were exposed to each treatment, and RNA samples from the 9 individuals were pooled with equal proportion.