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Abstract
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Salt stress, as the most important abiotic stress, limits growth of plants and causes
extensive damage to agricultural production worldwide. Therefore, it is necessary to
identify genes that play a key role in tolerance to salt stress in plants through the analysis
of transcriptome data such as microarray and High-Throughput Sequencing (HTS or
NGS). In the present research, the combined analysis of microarray data by R packages
for Hordeum vulgare L. under salinity stress identified 685 upregulated meta-DEGs
(differentially expressed genes) and 766 downregulated meta-DEGs. The upregulated
genes mostly belong to abiotic stress tolerance and hormone biosynthesis, and the
downregulated genes pertain to late embryogenesis abundant protein and salinity stress
response. GO terms in the upregulated genes are mostly associated with response to
external and internal stresses; and in the downregulated genes, they are mostly associated
with cellular metabolism. In the up and down meta-DEGs by KEGG, most of the genes
connected to salinity stress included PP2C, ABF, AGT, and ChiB and F-box connected to
the downregulated genes. Moreover, Transcription Factors (TFs) in the up and
downregulated meta-DEGs with high frequency included AP2, ERF, bZIP, and bHLH.
Most of the hub upregulated genes acquired from this research were metabolite
biosynthesis and photosynthesis-related; and the hub downregulated genes were mainly
the tricarboxylic acid cycle and glycolysis processes-related. Finally, a comparison was
made between this meta-analysis and data obtained from other investigations. The
findings validated their up and down expression. Our results give a new understanding
about the molecular mechanism and present many TFs and candidate genes for salt stress
tolerance in barley breeding programs.
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