Identification of conserved salt-responsive genes from bread wheat, barley crops with Arabidopsis based on microarray data

Salt stress is one of the important environmental factors that adversely affects plant growth and yield. Identification of key components involved in the stress response networks is the important task in development of tolerant varieties through genetic engineering and molecular breeding programs. Here, we have performed comprehensive bioinformatics analysis to identify conserved genes and mechanisms involving in salt stress response across monocots, wheat and barley and dicot Arabidopsis. The microarray data were retrieved from GEO dataset at NCBI, which were already generated through experiments on the leaves of mentioned species under various stress conditions. Arabidopsis orthologues of salt responsive genes from wheat and barley were recognized by performing BLASTx compared with Arabidopsis protein database. We identified 208, 1336, and 4527 salt responsive genes from barley, wheat, and Arabidopsis, respectively, where 25 genes were common and considered as conserved salt responsive genes among species. The conserved genes are involved in stress signaling, ion homeostasis of ions, reactive oxygen species homeostasis, and energy, osmoprotectant mechanisms, and cell wall lignification pathways by exposing to salt stress in the three species. The theoretical gene co-expression network during signaling pathway was also presented in the salt stress condition.