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Adaptive strategies of Scots pine under shade: Increase in lignin synthesis and ecotypic variation in defense‐related gene expression

Shade is a stressful condition for plants characterized by low Red:Far‐Red (R:FR) ratio. The northern latitudes in Sweden daily receive more hours of FR‐enriched light (twilight) or shade‐like conditions compared to southern forests during the growing season. Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is a sh...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ranade, Sonali Sachin, Seipel, George, Gorzsás, András, García‐Gil, María Rosario
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9827939/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36177740
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ppl.13792
Descripción
Sumario:Shade is a stressful condition for plants characterized by low Red:Far‐Red (R:FR) ratio. The northern latitudes in Sweden daily receive more hours of FR‐enriched light (twilight) or shade‐like conditions compared to southern forests during the growing season. Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is a shade‐intolerant species. Yet, it is well adapted to this latitudinal variation in light, which is evident by a northward increase in FR requirement to maintain growth. Shade adversely affects plant growth; it makes the plant weak and, therefore, susceptible to pathogen attack. Lignin is involved in plant protection against pathogen invasion mainly by forming a physical barrier. We studied lignin synthesis and expression of defense‐related genes (growth‐defense trade‐offs) under a low R:FR (shade) ratio in Scots pine. A higher number of immunity/defense‐related genes were up‐regulated in response to shade in northern populations compared to southern ones, which can be viewed as a local adaptation to light quality for optimal growth and survival. Light quality regulates lignin metabolism; light stimulates lignin synthesis, while shade causes a decrease in lignin synthesis in most angiosperms. In contrast, Scots pine shows an increase in lignin synthesis supported by the higher expression of a few key genes in the lignin biosynthetic pathway, a novel finding reported by our study. These findings can be applied to future breeding strategies in forestry to produce disease‐resilient trees.