Fig. 5

Expression of Ethylene-Related Genes in Soybean Under Drought Stress Conditions. The graphs show the expression levels, obtained by RT-qPCR, of five soybean genes related to ethylene biosynthesis [MAT (a), ACS (b) and ACO (c)] and ethylene signal transduction [ETR (d) and CTR (e)]. The expression of these genes in the experiment was compared in roots and leaves of soybean cultivars BR16 and EMBRAPA48 after different durations of drought stress. In the column graphs 1 and 2, the statistical analysis was performed by comparing similar tissues in both cultivars under the same conditions of drought stress (same durations). The asterisks represent the level of statistical significance: (*) p ≤ 0.05; (**) 0.01 ≤ p < 0.05; (***) 0.001 ≤ p < 0.01. Each dot represents the average amount (± standard error) of three experimental replicates (same sample) in three biological samples (different plants), totaling nine replicates. The standard error is not presented with some of the dots because their absolute values are lower than the scale. After normalization based on housekeeping genes, the values given in the graph are relative to the lowest expression, whose value was set at 1 (one). Information about the target genes is presented (Additional file 6: Method S1)