Adaptive strategy of allohexaploid wheat to long-term salinity stress

Background Most studies of crop salinity tolerance are conducted under short-term stress condition within one growth stage. Understanding of the mechanisms of crop response to long-term salinity stress (LSS) is valuable for achieving the improvement of crop salinity tolerance. In the current study, we exposed allohexaploid wheat seeds to LSS conditions from germination stage to young seedling stage for 30 days. To elucidate the adaptive strategy of allohexaploid wheat to LSS, we analyzed chloroplast ultrastructure, leaf anatomy, transcriptomic profiling and concentrations of plant hormones and organic compatible solutes, comparing stressed and control plants. Results Transcriptomic profiling and biochemical analysis showed that energy partitioning between general metabolism maintenance and stress response may be crucial for survival of allohexaploid wheat under LSS. Under LSS, wheat appeared to shift energy from general maintenance to stress response through stimulating the abscisic acid (ABA) pathway and suppressing gibberellin and jasmonic acid pathways in the leaf. We further distinguished the expression status of the A, B, and D homeologs of any gene triad, and also surveyed the effects of LSS on homeolog expression bias for salinity-tolerant triads. We found that LSS had similar effects on expression of the three homeologs for most salinity-tolerant triads. However, in some of these triads, LSS induced different effects on the expression of the three homeologs. Conclusions The shift of the energy from general maintenance to stress response may be important for wheat LSS tolerance. LSS influences homeolog expression bias of salinity-tolerant triads.