The nitrogen nutrient efficiency and the expression analysis of the related genes in different allelopathic potential rice(Oryza sativa L.) varieties at seedling stage
Abstract:Plant allelopathy was a very complicatedly chemoecological phenomenon, which was significantly mediated by ecological factors, such as N nutrient, one of the important factors. In order to explore the inducible mechanism by N nutrient, which markedly affected allelopathic potential in the suppression on the target weeds, we studied the changes in morphological characters of allelopathic rice PI312777 and its counterpart Lemont in the responses to different N supplies and their differences in N nutrient efficiency at the seedling stage, in turn we further detected the differential expressions of the key genes, which were involved in N metabolism and secondary substance synthesis in the two rice varieties concerned using real time quantitative PCR(FQ-PCR). The results indicated that allelopathic rice PI312777 was more insensitive to the nutrient stress than non-allelopathic rice Lemont, performing its stronger adaptable ability and higher N nutrient efficiency especially in lower N supplies. The results obtained form the real time quantitative PCR showed that the relative gene expression quantity of nitrite reductase(nir) and gstamine synthetase(gs) in the leaves of the two rice cultivars were decreased to different extent, indicating that the two gene expressions were down-regulated by 1.2 and 1.4 fold times in allelopathic rice PI312777, and they were also decreased by 3.0 and 1.8 fold times respectively in its counterpart Lemont under lower nitrogen supplies. The decreased ranges of the two genes in non-allelopathic rice Lemont were 2.5 and 1.3 fold times as those in allelopathic rice PI312777. Different trend were observed in the case of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase(pal) and 3-hydroxy-3-methylgstaryl-CoA reductase(hmgr) concerned, which were the key enzymes in phenylalanine and isoprenoids metabolic pathway, indicating that the gene expression of the two key enzymes in the leaves of PI312777 under lower nitrogen condition was up-regulated by 6.0 and 1.6 times respectively compared with the control under normal nitrogen condition. The reverse was true in non-allelopathic rice Lemont, showing that the gene expressions of the two enzymes, i.e. PAL and HMGR in the leaves of Lemont under lower nitrogen condition were down-regulated by 1.3 and 68 fold times as those under normal nitrogen supplies. These findings suggested that allelopathic rice was characterized by its active molecular ecological properties especially in the responses to lower nitrogen stress.