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The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was funded by the projects PID2022-138484OR-I00 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and State Research Agency (AEI) and LMP148_21 from the Government of Aragon; and by the Operational Programme FEDER Aragon 2023-2025 and 2020-2022, and the European Social Fund from the European Union (A12-23R: "Grupo de investigacion en fruticultura: caracterizacion, adaptacion y mejora genetica"). IML was supported by a predoctoral contract for training doctors from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU) and the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI).

Analysis of institutional authors

Medina-Lozano, InesAuthorGrimplet, JeromeAuthorDiaz, AuroraCorresponding Author

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March 31, 2025
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Harnessing the diversity of a lettuce wild relative to identify anthocyanin-related genes transcriptionally responsive to drought stress

Publicated to:Frontiers In Plant Science. 15 1494339- - 2025-01-15 15(), DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1494339

Authors: Medina-Lozano, Ines; Grimplet, Jerome; Diaz, Aurora

Affiliations

Agrifood Res & Technol Ctr Aragon CITA, Dept Plant Sci, Zaragoza, Spain - Author
CITA Univ Zaragoza, AgriFood Inst Aragon IA2, Zaragoza, Spain - Author

Abstract

Lettuce is a crop particularly vulnerable to drought. A transcriptomic study in the variety 'Romired' and the wild relative Lactuca homblei was conducted to understand the increase in anthocyanins (only significant in L. homblei) in response to drought previously observed. RNA-seq revealed more differentially expressed genes (DEGs), especially upregulated, in the wild species, in which the most abundant and significant GO terms were involved in regulatory processes (including response to water). Anthocyanin synthesis was triggered in L. homblei in response to drought, with 17 genes activated out of the 36 mapped in the phenylpropanoid-flavonoid pathway compared to 7 in 'Romired'. Nineteen candidate DEGs with the strongest change in expression and correlation with both anthocyanin content and drought were selected and validated by qPCR, all being differentially expressed only in the wild species with the two techniques. Their functions were related to anthocyanins and/or stress response and they harboured 404 and 11 polymorphisms in the wild and cultivated species, respectively. Some wild variants had high or moderate predicted impacts on the respective protein function: a transcription factor that responds to abiotic stresses, a heat shock protein involved in stomatal closure, and a phospholipase participating in anthocyanin accumulation under abiotic stress. These genetic variants could explain the differences in the gene expression patterns between the wild (significantly up/downregulated) and the cultivated (no significant changes) species. The diversity of this crop wild relative for anthocyanin-related genes involved in the response to drought could be exploited to improve lettuce resilience against some adverse climate effects.

Keywords

<italic>lactuca sativa</italic> l.Abiotic stressAntioxidant propertiesAntioxidantesAntioxidantsBiosynthesisCrop wild relativesDifferentially expressed genesEspecies silvestres afín a las plantas cultivadasEstrés de sequiaExpression analysisLactuca sativa var. longifoliaLactuca sativalMetabolismProgramReal-time qpcrResiliencResilienceResiliencia al climaRnRna-seq

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Frontiers In Plant Science due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2025, it was in position 33/273, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Plant Sciences.

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-08-06:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 4.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 5 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 3.25.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 3 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: http://hdl.handle.net/10532/7449

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (Medina Lozano, Inés) and Last Author (Díaz Bermúdez, Aurora).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been Díaz Bermúdez, Aurora.