ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Metabolism and Chemodiversity
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1614515
This article is part of the Research TopicMolecular Architects of the Green World: Genetic, Epigenetic, and Transcriptional Regulation of Plant Metabolism and Chemo-diversityView all 4 articles
Integration of metabolic and transcriptomic analyses for revealing the galactose metabolism of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) under salt stress
Provisionally accepted
Ge Bai1
Hui Zhang2
Yong Li1
Da-Hai Yang1Mingliang Fei1Tao Pang1Yaning Fu2
Yang Aiguo3
Zhen-Yu Wang4
Jinbao Gu4*
He Xie1*- 1Yunnan Academy of Tobacco Agricultural Sciences, Yuxi, Yunnan, China
- 2Beijing Life Science Academy, Beijing, China
- 3Tobacco Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
- 4Institute of Nanfan＆Seed Industry, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China
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Soil salinization poses a global threat to agriculture, necessitating strategies to enhance plant salt stress tolerance. Understanding the metabolic and transcriptomic responses of tobacco plants to salt stress is crucial for developing such strategies.This study identified 238 up-regulated and 122 down-regulated metabolites in tobacco plants under long-term salt stress. Initial stress stages activated galactose and sucrose metabolic pathways.Chlorophyll synthesis was impacted by decreased 5-aminolevulinic acid production, while proline accumulation helped mitigate cell damage. Metabolite-metabolite correlation analysis revealed significant correlations among metabolites, and enrichment analysis highlighted benzamides, amino acids, fatty acids, and monosaccharides. Transcriptome analysis identified 8,386 differentially expressed genes, with enriched pathways in hormone signaling, photosynthesis, and amino acid metabolism. Integrated analysis confirmed the involvement of sucrose pathway in the salt response, validated by qRT-PCR.This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the regulatory networks in tobacco during salt stress. The findings lay the groundwork for future research on plant stress responses and the development of salt-tolerant tobacco cultivars.
Keywords: salt stress, Metabolomics, Transcriptomics, tobacco plants, Molecular mechanisms, salt tolerance
Received: 19 Apr 2025; Accepted: 29 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bai, Zhang, Li, Yang, Fei, Pang, Fu, Aiguo, Wang, Gu and Xie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jinbao Gu, Institute of Nanfan＆Seed Industry, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China
He Xie, Yunnan Academy of Tobacco Agricultural Sciences, Yuxi, 653100, Yunnan, China
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