Transcriptome analysis revealed the stress memory of grapes after hydrogen peroxide acclimation treatment

Hydrogen peroxide treatment promoted early ripening of grape berries, and twice treatment has the better effects of advancing berry ripening compared to the single application. It is speculated that this may be related to the plant's stress memory. Here, berries were firstly acclimated with low concentration hydrogen peroxide, then with high concentration. The gene expression levels of acclimation group (HA group) and control group (H group) were compared. At 0, 4 and 24 h after acclimation, there were 99 (up-regulated 33, down-regulated 66), 548 (up-regulated 306, down-regulated 242), and 267 (up-regulated 251 and down-regulated 16) differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in HA vs H, respectively. 24 DEGs were screened potentially to be involved in stress memory. That were enriched for zinc ion transport, chaperones, endoplasmic reticulum protein processing—mainly heat shock protein (HSP) and certain Zinc-regulated, Iron-regulated transporter-like Protein (ZIP) transporters. Compared to the non-acclimated group, these genes exhibited a more robust expression trend after undergoing acclimation, especially at 4 h. These genes may play a crucial role in transcriptional memory and regulating gene expression after oxidative stress in grape. These results provide new insights into the process of oxidative stress in plants.