Biochemical and Molecular Evaluation of Drought Tolerance promising sugarcane (Saccharum spp.)

Abstract Background: (Saccharum. spp L.) Is an economic crop cultivated in the tropical and subtropical zones. Sugarcane crop faces all types of environmental constraints due to its long life cycle period. Among various stresses, drought creates major obstacle to sugarcane production. Sugarcane plant responds to such stress by activating various biochemical and molecular attributes. Therefore, this experiment was undertaken to elucidate a change in biochemical and differential expression profile of genes associated with drought under greenhouse condition by using ten sugarcane genotypes (GT.54 − 9, G.2009-11, K.81113, M.35–157, G.2003-49, G.84 − 47, G.2000-3, G.99–103, G.2004-27 and G.2003-47). Stress was imposed 120 days after planting by three stressed levels of water stress (87.5, 75 and 62.5%) according to Reference evapotranspiration (ET0). Results: The obtained results showed significant differences among productivity, biochemical and molecular responses in all genotypes. However, drought tolerant genotypes G.2004-27 and G.2003-47 were found better than others in maintaining an increase in biochemical antioxidant activities and molecular traits that resulted in better recovery and relatively high yield quality. Conclusion: The fact that sugarcane crop presents one of the largest and most intricate genomes of the plant kingdom, with diploid numbers ranging from 100 to 130 chromosomes, indicating a high ploidy level, as well as regular aneuploidy events. On the other hand drought stress can produce irreversible alterations that could induce plant death and causes several changes in sugarcane. Because of this complexity, the use of molecular tools represents an attractive approach for improving sugarcane breeding programs. Reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) is a good tool allowing the detection of variations in gene expression, including discreetly transcribed genes.