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Transcriptome profiling of postharvest strawberry fruit in response to exogenous auxin and abscisic acid

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Abstract

Main conclusion

Auxin and abscisic acid regulate strawberry fruit ripening and senescence through cross-talk of their signal transduction pathways that further modulate the structural genes related to physico-chemical properties of fruit.

The physiological and transcriptomic changes in harvested strawberry fruits in responses to IAA, ABA and their combination were analyzed. Exogenous IAA delayed the ripening process of strawberries after harvest while ABA promoted the postharvest ripening. However, treatment with a combination of IAA and ABA did not slow down nor accelerate the postharvest ripening in the strawberry fruits. At the molecular level, exogenous IAA up regulated the expressions of genes related to IAA signaling, including AUX/IAA, ARF, TOPLESS and genes encoding E3 ubiquitin protein ligase and annexin, and down regulated genes related to pectin depolymerization, cell wall degradation, sucrose and anthocyanin biosyntheses. In contrast, exogenous ABA induced genes related to fruit softening, and genes involved in signaling pathways including SKP1, HSPs, CK2, and SRG1. Comparison of transcriptomes in responses to individual treatments with IAA or ABA or the combination revealed that there were cooperative and antagonistic actions between IAA and ABA in fruit. However, 17 % of the differentially expressed unigenes in response to the combination of IAA and ABA were unique and were not found in those unigenes responding to either IAA or ABA alone. The analyses also found that receptor-like kinases and ubiquitin ligases responded to both IAA and ABA, which seemed to play a pivotal role in both hormones’ signaling pathways and thus might be the cross-talk points of both hormones.

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Abbreviations

ABA:

Abscisic acid

ABI3:

Abscisic acid insensitive 3

AIP2:

ABI-interacting protein 2

ARF:

Auxin response factor

ARP:

Auxin-repressed protein

BAG:

Bcl-2 associated athanogene family

CAD:

Cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase

CK:

Casein kinase

DGE:

Digital gene expression

GH3:

Indole-3-acetic acid-amido synthetase

HSPs:

Heat-shock proteins

IAA:

Auxin

KO:

KEGG Ortholog database

KOG/COG:

Clusters of orthologous groups of proteins

NCED:

9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase

RLKs:

Receptor-like kinases

SKP1:

S-phase kinase-associated proteins 1

VLCFA:

Very-long-chain fatty acid synthesis

XT1:

Xylosyltransferase 1

XTH:

Xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolase

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the National Basic Research Program (973 program) of China (2013CB127101) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31372113).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Agro-Food Processing, Fuli Institute of Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Jingxin Chen, Linchun Mao, Wenjing Lu, Tiejin Ying & Zisheng Luo

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  1. Jingxin Chen
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  2. Linchun Mao
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  3. Wenjing Lu
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Correspondence to Linchun Mao.

Electronic supplementary material

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Supplementary material 1

Fig. S1 Length distribution of unigenes (TIFF 1055 kb)

Supplementary material 2

Fig. S2 KEGG classification of unigenes (TIFF 1772 kb)

Supplementary material 3

Fig. S3 KOG classification of unigenes (TIFF 1966 kb)

Supplementary material 4

Fig. S4 GO classification of unigenes (TIFF 3190 kb)

Supplementary material 5

Fig. S5 Correlation analysis of gene expression levels revealed by RT-qPCR and RNA-seq digital data (12 randomly selected unigenes are comp48373_c0, comp49239_c0, comp29094_c0, comp45854_c0, comp44817_c0, comp9725_c0, comp38169_c0, comp44449_c0, comp50216_c0, comp34077_c1, comp54510_c0, comp46511_c0) (TIFF 1078 kb)

Supplementary material 6

Fig. S6 Soluble solid (a), soluble sugar (b) and total anthocyanin (c) contents of strawberry fruits in response to exogenous IAA and ABA. 0, Control, IAA, ABA, IAA+ABA are noted as in the legend to Fig. 1. Lower-case letters (a, b, c, d) on the bar chart indicate the significant differences between different treatments (Duncan’s test, P < 0.05) (TIFF 1840 kb)

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Supplementary material 8 (DOC 32 kb)

Supplementary material 9 (DOC 28 kb)

Supplementary material 10 (DOC 27 kb)

Supplementary material 11 (XLS 198 kb)

Supplementary material 12 (XLS 166 kb)

Supplementary material 13 (XLS 177 kb)

Supplementary material 14 (XLS 6527 kb)

Supplementary material 15 (XLS 6505 kb)

Supplementary material 16 (XLS 6533 kb)

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Chen, J., Mao, L., Lu, W. et al. Transcriptome profiling of postharvest strawberry fruit in response to exogenous auxin and abscisic acid. Planta 243, 183–197 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-015-2402-5

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