Assessment of potential winter hardiness in winter bread wheat cultivars and genotypes by analyzing autofluorescence in seedling tissues

Background. Winter crops are the most productive component of agricultural biocenoses. In Russia, winter wheat suffers the greatest losses in winter, so a search for traits marking high or low winter hardiness in autumn-sown genotypes, including improved cultivars, is needed to assess their potential for overwintering. One of such markers of high winter hardiness is an increased lignin content in plant tissues. The terminal enzyme in the phenylpropanoid pathway of metabolism, wherein lignin components are formed, is cinnamyl-alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD, EC 1.1.1.195). In plants, the CAD enzyme is one of the links in the aromatic metabolism, which generates, in addition to lignin, a number of aromatic compounds, such as lignans, aromatic glycosides, etc. Many of these compounds, like lignin, contain chromophore groups and are capable of autofluorescence. Correlations of the genotypes that incorporate CAD1-F with overwintering are studied in this work.

Materials and methods. The winter bread wheat cultivars ‘Zitnica’ (Yugoslavia) and ‘Novosibirskaya 9’ (ICG SB RAS, Russia), contrasting in winter hardiness and CAD isozyme spectra, their hybrids, and 28 improved winter cultivars developed in Krasnodar were selected for the study. Fluorescence analysis of 28 winter wheat cultivars was also performed. Correlation coefficients between fluorescence and frost tolerance were calculated using the results of the analysis of 7 most contrasting cultivars.

Conclusions. The tested winter bread wheat genotypes demonstrated the interplay between CAD1-F and successful overwintering: a correlation was found in the genotypes carrying the 00 CAD1-F allele with higher percentage of overwintered plants. This dependence was not observed in every season. The analysis of seedling sections for fluorescence can also be used for preliminary assessment of winter tolerance in winter bread wheat under laboratory conditions.

1. Cheynier V., Comte G., Davies K.M., Lattanzio V., Martens S. Plant phenolics: recent advances on their biosynthesis, genetics, and ecophysiology. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. 2013;72:1-20. DOI: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2013.05.009

2. Goodwin T.W., Mercer E.I. Introduction to Plant Biochemistry. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Oxford: Pergamon Press; 1983a.

3. Goodwin T.W., Mercer E.I. Introduction to Plant Biochemistry. Vol. 2. 2nd ed. Oxford: Pergamon Press; 1983b.

4. Gubanov Y.V., Ivanov N.N. Winter wheat (Ozimaya pshenitsa). Moscow: Agropromizdat; 1988. [in Russian]

5. Erath W., Bauer E., Fowler D.B., Gordillo A., Korzun V., Ponomareva M. et al. Exploring new alleles for frost tolerance in winter rye. Theoretical and Applied Genetics. 2017;130(10):2151-2164. DOI: 10.1007/s00122-017-2948-7

6. Ivanisov M.M., Ionova E.V. Frost tolerance of the varieties and lines of soft winter wheat. International Research Journal. 2016;9(51)(Pt 3):110-113. [in Russian]

7. Janská A., Aprile A., Zámečník J., Cattivelli L., Ovesná J. Transcriptional responses of winter barley to cold indicate nucleosome remodeling as a specific feature of crown tissues. Functional and Integrative Genomics. 2011;11(2):307-325. DOI: 10.1007/s10142-011-0213-8

8. Kantser A.N. Dynamics of lignin content and frost resistance in woody plants (Dinamika soderzhaniya lignina i morozostoykost drevesnykh rasteniy). Fiziologiya i biokhimiya kulturnykh rasteniy = Physiology and Biochemistry of Cultivated Plants. 1972;4(1):92-95. [in Russian]

9. Karpova Ye.V., Shundrina I.K., Orlova Ye.A., Konovalov A.A. Aromatic and mineral substances in the tissues of the samples of spring common wheat Triticum aestivum L., differing in resistance to brown rust (pathogen Puccinia triticina Erikss.). Chemistry of Plant Raw Materials. 2019;(4):87-95. [in Russian]

10. Kirichenko F.G. Detection of frost resistance in winter crops by the method of direct freezing in sowing boxes (Opredeleniye morozostoykosti ozimykh kultur metodom pryamogo promorazhivaniya v posevnykh yashchikakh). In: Methods for Determining Frost Tolerance and Winter Hardiness in Winter Crops (Metody opredeleniya morozoi zimostoykosti ozimykh kultur). Moscow; 1969. p.3-8. [in Russian]

11. Konovalov A.A., Shundrina I.K., Karpova E.V. Polymorphism of lignification enzymes in plants: Functional importance and applied aspects. Biology Bulletin Reviews. 2016;6(2):149-163. DOI: 10.1134/S2079086416020031

12. Konovalov A.A., Shundrina I.K., Karpova E.V., Goncharov N.P., Kondratenko E.Ya. Chromosomal localization of aromatic alcohol dehydrogenase fast-migrating isoenzyme AAdh1F (CAD1F) gene in Triticum aestivum L. bread wheat. Russian Journal of Genetics. 2016;52(10):1110-1116. DOI: 10.1134/S1022795416080056

13. Korochkin L.I., Serov O.L., Pudovkin A.I., Aronshtam A.A., Borkin L.Ya. Genetics of isoenzymes (Genetika izofermentov). D.K. Belyaev (ed.). Moscow: Nauka; 1977. [in Russian]

14. Le Gall H., Philippe F., Domon J.M., Gillet F., Pelloux J., Rayon C. Cell wall metabolism in response to abiotic stress. Plants. 2015;4(1):112-166. DOI: 10.3390/plants4010112

15. Moura J.C.M.S.M., Bonine C.A.V., de Oliveira Fernandes Viana J., Dornelas M.C., Mazzafera P. Abiotic and biotic stresses and changes in the lignin content and composition in plants. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology. 2010;52(4):360-376. DOI: 10.1111/j.1744-7909.2010.00892.x

16. Olenichenko N.A., Zagoskina N.V. Response of winter wheat to cold: production of phenolic compounds and L-phenylalanine ammonia lyase activity. Applied Biochemistry and Microbiology. 2005;41(6):600-603. DOI: 10.1007/s10438-005-0109-2

17. Ryadnova I.M. Lignification of shoots in fruit trees and their frost resistance (Odrevesneniye pobegov plodovykh derevyev i ikh morozostoykost). Russian Journal of Plant Physiology. 1957;4(2):134-137. [in Russian]

18. Talamond P., Verdeil J.L., Conéjéro G. Secondary metabolite localization by autofluorescence in living plant cells. Molecules. 2015;20(3):5024-5037. DOI: 10.3390/molecules20035024

19. Toth I.K., Bell K.S., Holeva M.C., Birch P.R.J. Soft rot erwiniae: from genes to genomes. Molecular Plant Pathology. 2003;4(1):17-30. DOI: 10.1046/j.1364-3703.2003.00149.x.20569359

20. Wei H., Dhanaraj A.L., Arora R., Rowland L.J., Fu Y., Sun L. Identification of cold acclimation-responsive Rhododendrongenes for lipid metabolism, membrane transport and lignin biosynthesis: importance of moderately abundant ESTs in genomic studies. Plant, Cell and Environment. 2006;29(4):558-570. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-3040.2005.01432.x

21. Zaprometov M.N. Phenolic compounds: distribution, metabolism and functions in plants (Fenolnye soedineniya: rasprostraneniye, metabolizm i funktsii v rasteniyakh). Moscow: Nauka; 1993. [in Russian]