The Amino Acid Metabolic and Carbohydrate Metabolic Pathway Play Important Roles during Salt-Stress Response in Tomato

Zhi Zhang, Cuiyu Mao, Zheng Shi, Xiaohong Kou

Salt stress affects the plant quality, which affects the productivity of plants and the quality of water storage. In a recent study, we conducted the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) analysis and RNA-Seq, bioinformatics study methods, and detection of the key genes with qRT-PCR. Our findings suggested that the optimum salt treatment conditions are 200 mM and 19d for the identification of salt tolerance in tomato. Based on the RNA-Seq, we found 17 amino acid metabolic and 17 carbohydrate metabolic pathways enriched in the biological metabolism during the response to salt stress in tomato. We found 7 amino acid metabolic and 6 carbohydrate metabolic pathways that were significantly enriched in the adaption to salt stress. Moreover, we screened 17 and 19 key genes in 7 amino acid metabolic and 6 carbohydrate metabolic pathways respectively. We chose some of the key genes for verifying by qRT-PCR. The results showed that the expression of these genes was the same as that of RNA-seq. We found that these significant pathways and vital genes occupy an important roles in a whole process of adaptation to salt stress. These results provide valuable information, improve the ability to resist pressure, and improve the quality of the plant.