Revealing the Patterns and Key Genes of Heat-Stress Response in Quinoa Through Physiological and Transcriptomic Analyses.
4 affiliations
- 1College of Life Sciences, Yantai University, Yantai 264005, China.
- 2Shandong Laboratory of Advanced Agriculture Sciences at Weifang, Peking University Institute of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Weifang 261325, China.
- 3Chongqing Forestry Investment Development Co., Ltd., Chongqing 401120, China.
- 4College of Life Science, Qilu Normal University, Jinan 250200, China.
Abstract
Quinoa is a high-nutrition crop originating from the Andes Mountains that is tolerant to cold, drought and salt. However, the mechanism of the high-temperature response in quinoa is still unclear. In this study, quinoa line YL-6 was used to analyze the changes in photosynthetic parameters, physiological parameters and the transcriptome after 0, 3, 12 and 24 h of heat stress. Our results showed that photosynthetic parameters, including the maximum quantum yield of PSII (Fv/Fm), steady-state effective quantum yield (ΦPSII_Lss), non-photochemical quenching (NPQ_Lss), and photochemical quenching coefficients (qL_Lss, qP_Lss), decreased significantly under heat stress, whereas the activities of antioxidant enzymes, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and catalase (CAT), increased significantly at the early stage. The contents of osmotic adjustment substances such as proline, soluble protein and soluble sugar showed a non-single change trend. WGCNA was conducted to group the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) into 12 co-expression modules. Key modules associated with heat perception and signal transduction were identified, and a core regulatory network was subsequently constructed. Hub genes encoding molecular chaperones and transcription factors were screened, among which heat shock proteins (HSPs) were the most prominent. These results could provide a theoretical basis for analyzing the regulatory network of heat stress, exploring heat-resistant genes and introducing and domesticating quinoa.
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BibTeX
@article{liu2026revealing,
title = {{Revealing the Patterns and Key Genes of Heat-Stress Response in Quinoa Through Physiological and Transcriptomic Analyses.}},
author = {Wenli Liu and Fangjun Chen and Wei Wang and Jiancheng Song and Shihua Chen and Yibo An and Kun Chen and Haibo Yin and Shanli Guo},
journal = {Biology},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3390/biology15191781},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42883454},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Revealing the Patterns and Key Genes of Heat-Stress Response in Quinoa Through Physiological and Transcriptomic Analyses.
AU - Wenli Liu
AU - Fangjun Chen
AU - Wei Wang
AU - Jiancheng Song
AU - Shihua Chen
AU - Yibo An
AU - Kun Chen
AU - Haibo Yin
AU - Shanli Guo
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/08
JO - Biology
DO - 10.3390/biology15191781
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42883454
AB - Quinoa is a high-nutrition crop originating from the Andes Mountains that is tolerant to cold, drought and salt. However, the mechanism of the high-temperature response in quinoa is still unclear. In this study, quinoa line YL-6 was used to analyze the changes in photosynthetic parameters, physiological parameters and the transcriptome after 0, 3, 12 and 24 h of heat stress. Our results showed that photosynthetic parameters, including the maximum quantum yield of PSII (Fv/Fm), steady-state effective quantum yield (ΦPSII_Lss), non-photochemical quenching (NPQ_Lss), and photochemical quenching coefficients (qL_Lss, qP_Lss), decreased significantly under heat stress, whereas the activities of antioxidant enzymes, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and catalase (CAT), increased significantly at the early stage. The contents of osmotic adjustment substances such as proline, soluble protein and soluble sugar showed a non-single change trend. WGCNA was conducted to group the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) into 12 co-expression modules. Key modules associated with heat perception and signal transduction were identified, and a core regulatory network was subsequently constructed. Hub genes encoding molecular chaperones and transcription factors were screened, among which heat shock proteins (HSPs) were the most prominent. These results could provide a theoretical basis for analyzing the regulatory network of heat stress, exploring heat-resistant genes and introducing and domesticating quinoa.
SN - 2079-7737
ER -