Expressional profiling study of lavandula angustifolia l. in response to drought stress by using transcriptome analysis.

 Drought stress is a major problem that plagues world's arable lands and poses major limitations to plant growth and productivity. Lavandula angustifolia L. is a medicinal and aromatic plant that has great value for its essential oil. Due to the relatively resistant nature of this plant to water deficit, it can be a good substitute for plants with high water demand. To identification of some of genes involved in response to drought stress, we carried out transcriptome analysis under normal and drought condition using RNA-Seq.  

Illumina HiSeq. 2000 was applied for sequencing of flower and leaf mRNAs under control and stress conditions. Also the activity of some antioxidant enzymes  and level of Malondialdehyde and Dityrosine were measured.

Among a total of 264126 transcripts, 1083 DEGs in flower and 150 DEGs in leaf were identified in response to the drought stress. Gene Ontology Enrichment of drought responsive DEGs including catalytic activity, response to stimulus and binding were identified. KEGG analysis showed different pathways associated with stress such as biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, glutathione and proline metabolism and plant hormone signal transduction. Also some unigenes related to antioxidant enzymes were highlighted in response to drought.  

 The transcriptome data generated here is the first report of RNA-Seq for Lavandula angustifolia L. under drought stress. Biochemical analysis results in this study were consistent with the RNA-seq results. Our findings offer insights into the molecular networks of Lavandula angustifolia L.  in response to drought stress.