ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1637092
This article is part of the Research TopicPlant Stress Resistance: Unraveling the Mechanisms and Strategies for ResilienceView all 18 articles
Decoding the Hayward Kiwi (Actinidia deliciosa var Hayward) Genome: Transcriptomic Responses to Drought and Salinity and AdhSAP4's Role in Salinity Stress Responses
Provisionally accepted
Samuel Parra1
Gerardo Nuñez-Lillo2
Patricio Tapia-Reyes3
Emerson Carrasco-Lozano1Vincenzo Porcile1Christian Gonzalez-Calquin1Leticia Amaza1
Luis Felipe Quiroz4Claudio Meneses5
Michael Handford1
Lorena Norambuena1
Juan Pablo Martinez6
Claudia Renate Stange1*- 1Biology, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- 2Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso Escuela de Agronomia, Quillota, Chile
- 3Universidad Santo Tomas, Santiago, Chile
- 4University of Galway Ryan Institute, Galway, Ireland
- 5Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- 6Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias, Santiago, Chile
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As sessile organisms, plants must adapt to various environmental stressors, particularly high salinity and water scarcity. To mitigate these challenges, plants activate molecular signaling cascades that reorganize cellular processes to minimize oxidative damage. Plant responses to stress include both positive and negative regulators that balance defense mechanisms and normal cellular function. In this study, we focus on the kiwi (Actinidia deliciosa, var.Hayward), a species sensitive to drought and salinity. We performed genomic analysis generating a genome sequence with 42,797 annotated protein-coding genes, covering 44.61% of the genome and 96.2% BUSCO completeness. Using RNA-Seq analysis, we identified genes differentially expressed in response to acute (6 and 24 hours) drought and salinity stress. Notably, the AdhSAP4 gene was identified as a potential negative regulator of stress responses. AdhSAP4 belongs to a novel family of proteins known as stress-associated proteins (SAPs) that have been implicated in plant tolerance to various abiotic stresses.Functional analysis in Nicotiana tabacum revealed that overexpression of AdhSAP4 increased sensitivity to salt stress, indicating its role as a negative regulator to salinity in plants. This work provides insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying kiwi's response to abiotic stress and highlights the potential of SAP family proteins in regulating plant stress tolerance.
Keywords: Hayward kiwi (Actinidia deliciosa), Salinity stress, Drought stress, Transcriptomic (RNA-Seq), genome assembly, Stress associated protein (SAP)
Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Parra, Nuñez-Lillo, Tapia-Reyes, Carrasco-Lozano, Porcile, Gonzalez-Calquin, Amaza, Quiroz, Meneses, Handford, Norambuena, Martinez and Stange. 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: Claudia Renate Stange, Biology, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
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