Insights into the adaptive response of Arabidopsis thaliana to prolonged thermal stress by ribosomal profiling and RNA-Seq

BACKGROUND: Environmental stress puts organisms at risk and requires specific stress-tailored responses to maximize survival. Long-term exposure to stress necessitates a global reprogramming of the cellular activities at different levels of gene expression. RESULTS: Here, we use ribosome profiling and RNA sequencing to globally profile the adaptive response of Arabidopsis thaliana to prolonged heat stress. To adapt to long heat exposure, the expression of many genes is modulated in a coordinated manner at a transcriptional and translational level. However, a significant group of genes opposes this trend and shows mainly translational regulation. Different secondary structure elements are likely candidates to play a role in regulating translation of those genes. CONCLUSIONS: Our data also uncover on how the subunit stoichiometry of multimeric protein complexes in plastids is maintained upon heat exposure. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-016-0915-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.