Identification and evaluation of HvPIP1; 4 and HvnsLTP genes expression for drought tolerance in barley

It is of great significance to understand the tolerance mechanisms by which plants deal with drought stress and application of these mechanisms for improvement of genotypes in response to drought stress. In order to identify and investigate the expression of genes involved in tolerance to drought stress, leaf and root EST were analyzed in Spontaneum (wild barley) and Nimruz (tolernt to drought stress) barley genotypes. The library's initial information was received from the databases and the bioinformatics services were used for the pre-processing and identify genes. In order to investigate the expression of candidate genes with Real time-PCR, a factorial experiment was conducted in a Completely Randomized Design in a pot with 3 replication. First factor included cultivars (Nimruz and Spontaneum) and second factor was irrigation (control and 50%FC). Also sampling times was considered at 3 levels of 0, 24 and 72 hours after drought stress. Two genes HvPIP1; 4 (Plasma Membrane Intrinsic Protein 1;4) and HvnsLTP(Non-specific lipid transport) were identified based on expression in stress conditions as important genes involved in response to drought stress in the barely. Based on the analysis of gene expression, it was found that Nimruz genotype as resistant cultivar had a higher expression for candidate genes. The expression of HvPIP1; 4 and HvnsLTP genes were 95.98 and 54.53fold after 72 hours, respectively. In addition, the results of this study showed that changes in HvPIP1; 4 gene expression were significantly (P <0.05) higher than the HvnsLTP in the Nimruz genotype in the compared to the spontanum genotype. So, this gene has key role in drought resistance in Barley.