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Updated: Jul 25, 2025

Metabolomic Analysis of Barley by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry
Published on: November 8, 2024
Drought and recovery in barley: key gene networks and retrotransposon response
Maitry Paul1,2, Jaakko Tanskanen1,2,3, Marko Jääskeläinen1,2
1HiLIFE Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Introduction:
During drought, plants close their stomata at a critical soil water content (SWC), together with making diverse physiological, developmental, and biochemical responses.
Methods:
Using precision-phenotyping lysimeters, we imposed pre-flowering drought on four barley varieties (Arvo, Golden Promise, Hankkija 673, and Morex) and followed their physiological responses. For Golden Promise, we carried out RNA-seq on leaf transcripts before and during drought and during recovery, also examining retrotransposon BARE1expression. Transcriptional data were subjected to network analysis.
Results:
The varieties differed by their critical SWC (ϴcrit), Hankkija 673 responding at the highest and Golden Promise at the lowest. Pathways connected to drought and salinity response were strongly upregulated during drought; pathways connected to growth and development were strongly downregulated. During recovery, growth and development pathways were upregulated; altogether, 117 networked genes involved in ubiquitin-mediated autophagy were downregulated.
Discussion:
The differential response to SWC suggests adaptation to distinct rainfall patterns. We identified several strongly differentially expressed genes not earlier associated with drought response in barley. BARE1 transcription is strongly transcriptionally upregulated by drought and downregulated during recovery unequally between the investigated cultivars. The downregulation of networked autophagy genes suggests a role for autophagy in drought response; its importance to resilience should be further investigated.
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Transcription
Transcription is the process of synthesizing RNA from a DNA sequence by RNA polymerase. It is the first step in producing a protein from a gene sequence. Additionally, many other proteins and regulatory sequences are involved in the proper synthesis of messenger RNA (mRNA). Regulation of transcription is responsible for the differentiation of all the different types of cells and often for the proper cellular response to environmental signals.
Transcription Can Produce Different Kinds...
Regulation of Transpiration by Stomata

