Field Crop 2025, Vol.8, No.1, 41-50 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/fc 46 Figure 3 Transgenic B. napus showed changes in oil content and seed size. (a and b): Oil contents of transgenic B. napus lines. (c): TEM observation of transgenic and WT seeds. Bar=10 μm. (d): Seed sizes of transgenic plants, hybrids (H-35S: OE hybrids; H-RNAi: RNAi hybrids) and WT. (e): Average oil contents of transgenic and hybrid plants under drought conditions. (f): TSWs of transgenic and hybrid plants. All the results are represented as the mean ± standard deviation (STD; n=3). Statistically significant differences were determined using a two-tailed paired Student's t-test compared with WT plants under similar conditions, and the results are indicated by **P<0.01 (Adopted from Liang et al., 2019) 6 Challenges in Identifying Drought-Responsive Genes 6.1 Complexity of drought stress response in rapeseed How rapeseed copes with drought is not a simple matter. Different rapeseed varieties can behave very differently when faced with water shortage (Tan et al., 2019). For example, some genotypes will activate a large number of mRNAs and lncRNAs, while others may not react as strongly. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, from gene expression to protein activity to various metabolites, the entire plant is busy adjusting its state. What's more complicated is that various transcription factors and signaling pathways are involved, especially those related to plant hormones (Tan et al., 2020). So don't underestimate it just because it's a rapeseed plant. Its system for coping with drought may be more sophisticated than we can imagine. 6.2 Limitations of current transcriptome profiling approaches The transcriptome analysis technology currently used is indeed very powerful, but it is still a little short of fully understanding the drought resistance genes of rapeseed (Shamloo-Dashtpagerdi et al., 2015). For example, microRNAs and protein kinases are obviously very important in the process of drought resistance, but conventional detection methods often miss them. There is also a headache-different varieties of rapeseed, or even the same variety planted in different places, can have very different gene expressions (Zhang et al., 2019). What's more troublesome is that the rapeseed genome itself is very complex. Although those homologous genes look similar, their expression and regulatory mechanisms may be completely different (Moebes et al., 2022). Therefore, it is not realistic to rely on existing technology to catch all drought resistance genes.
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