Lens culinaris Medikus subsp. culinaris Raw sequence reads. Lens culinaris subsp. culinaris cultivar:PDL-2, JL-3

Heat stress causes devastating abiotic stresses in crop plants. As a terminal heat sensitive crop, lentil is a major crop in rainfed areas and a suitable model for heat stress tolerance research. In this study, we compared the transcriptome changes between the heat-tolerant (PDL-2) and heat-sensitive cultivar (JL-3) in response to heat stress treatments (350C). Transcriptional regulation, signal transduction and secondary metabolism in two genotypes showed significant differences, all of which might be related to mechanisms underlying heat stress tolerance. The transcriptional profiles presented here provide a foundation for deciphering the mechanism underlying heat tolerance. Based on our findings, we proposed several candidate genes that might be used to improve heat tolerance in lentil.