Integrated metabolism analysis for Glycine max responses to water stress

Abstract

Soybean (Glycine max, Leguminosae) is one of the most important food crops in the world, since the grains are primary and rich source of vegetable oil and protein for human and animal feed. However, soybean productivity is highly impacted by events such as drought and flooding. Indeed, abiotic stresses cause serious losts in many food crops wordlwide. They are directly related to changes in several cellular metabolic pathways, such as carbohydrates, amino acid and peptide metabolism. If the metabolic homeostasis is disrupted, there might be a reduction in growth, development and, consequently, yield. Considering this susceptibility, many efforts have been made aiming the development and characterization of more tolerant plant genotypes, along with the establishment of suitable approaches for the identification and annotation of molecular traits that vary in response to these events. In plant breeding, genomics and transcriptomics have been extensively used for the development and characterization of improved crops. However, the identification and annotation of molecular traits that vary in response to stress events remain a challenge. Therefore, the present study aims the identification and quantitation of water stress-responsive specialized metabolites from different soybean genotypes (two of them genetically modified with the gene AtGolS2 for galactinol synthase - GolS), cultivated under controlled, drought and flooding conditions, as well as to integrate this information with previously obtained data concerning the secondary metabolism and transcriptomics in order to understand the role of plant adaptations to water stresss.