Transcriptome profiling of the coffee (C. arabica L.) seedlings under salt stress condition

This research was conducted to study the gene expression of coffee (Coffea arabica L.) seedlings under salt stress condition. A solution of five percent (2.3 dS m-1) deep sea water was used for the salt treatment, and it was thereby compared to normal irrigation water (0.2 dS m-1) used for the control treatment. The mRNA was extracted from the leaves of the coffee seedlings for a comprehensive analysis. In this study, a total of 19,581 genes were identified and aligned to the reference sequences available in the coffee genome database. The gene ontology analysis was performed to estimate the number of genes associated with the identified biological processes, cellular components and molecular functions. Among the 19,581 genes, 7369 (37.64%) were associated with biological processes, 5909 (30.18%) with cellular components, and 5325 (27.19%) with molecular functions. The remaining 978 (4.99%) genes were therefore grouped as unclassified. A differential gene expression analysis was performed using the DESeq2 package to identify the genes that were differentially expressed between the treatments based on fold changes and p-values. Namely, a total of 611 differentially expressed genes were identified (treatment/control) in that case. Among these, 336 genes were up-regulated while 275 of the genes were downregulated. Of the differentially expressed genes, 60 genes showed statistically significant (p < 0.05) expression, 44 of which were up-regulated and 16 which were down-regulated. We also identified 11 differentially expressed transcription factor genes, 6 of which were up-regulated and rest 5 genes were down-regulated. The data generated from this study will help in the continued interest and understanding of the responses of coffee seedlings genes associated with salinity stress, in particular. This study will also provide important resources for further functional genomics studies.