Abstract
Gaseous molecules are widespread signaling compounds, regulating the cell development process in all major plant parts. For many decades, hydrogen sulfide molecule is considered mainly for its deleterious effects on plant system. The increasing recent experimental evidence and phenomenal concepts on H2S molecule further advance our understanding of H2S interaction with plant tissues. In addition, the H2S messenger molecule is found to have positive effects on plant growth, in limited condition, to maintain the balanced homeostasis. To meet the increasing demand, and to sustain the crop yield, various crop improvement programs have been followed. However, there is a concern that traditional plant improvement method and increasing climate change has a negative impact on crop production. A major approach to combating plant stress is to evaluate and explore the alternate source mechanism(s). Towards this aim, it will be valuable to characterize the genes involved in H2S homeostasis in the staple food crop rice pan-genome. In this research, we identified 15 H2S homeostasis genes in rice and used it for the ~3k rice pan-genome analysis to find out the genetic relatedness based on single nucleotide polymorphism data. Multidimensional scale plot of 15 H2S homeostasis genes among the rice cultivars, and RNA-seq experimental data analysis under various biotic and abiotic stress shows the functional genes involved in biotic and abiotic stress. This study provides new insights into plant stress management in crop breeding and suggests how H2S gene(s) can be utilized to improve the agronomic traits in rice and other food crops.
