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Expression analysis of key auxin synthesis, transport, and metabolism genes in different young dwarfing apple trees

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Abstract

The control of scion vigor by dwarfing apple rootstocks is most convincingly elucidated by the shoot–root–shoot signaling of auxins and other hormones. To identify auxin and auxin-related genes that may play roles in the composite tree’s auxin metabolism and dwarfing mechanism, the concentrations of IAA and the expression level of key auxin synthesis, transport, and metabolism genes were measured in leaves, phloem, and roots from the dwarfing Fuji/M9 and the vigorous Fuji/MM106. The results showed that the indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) content was lower in the dwarfing Fuji/M9 than in the vigorous Fuji/MM106. The IAA content in the Fuji/M9 rootstock’s phloem was higher than that of its scion phloem. The expression level of MdYUCCA10a gene was significantly lower in the leaves and roots of Fuji/M9 than in that of the Fuji/MM106. The phloem and roots of the Fuji/M9 rootstock showed low expression levels of MdPIN1b and MdPIN8a. The auxin-conjugated genes MdGH3-5b and MdGH3-9a showed lower expression levels in the Fuji/M9 than in the Fuji/MM106. However, the Fuji/M9 showed higher levels of the auxin-conjugate hydrolase genes MdIAR3c and MdILL6c. The low expression level of auxin synthesis gene MdYUCCA10a in Fuji/M9 probably induced the low auxin level. The lower expression levels of auxin transport genes MdPIN1b and MdPIN8a in the M9 rootstock were suggested to probably contribute to auxin accumulation in Fuji/M9 rootstock phloem. The low amount of auxin transported from the shoots along with the root auxin synthesis deficiencies reduced the root growth and then decreased the supply of root-produced substances to the shoots in Fuji/M9.

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Acknowledgments

This study was sponsored by the National Science and Technology Supporting Project (2013BAD20B03), National Apple Industry Technology System of Agriculture Ministry of China (CARS-28), National Spark Plan Program (2014GA850002), Science and Technology Innovative Engineering Project in Shaanxi province of China (2015NY114), Yangling Subsidiary Center Project of National Apple Improvement Center, and Collaborative Innovation of Center Shaanxi Fruit Industry Development, Innovation project of science and technology plan projects of Shaanxi province (2016TZC-N-11-6).

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    1. College of Horticulture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

      Chunhui Song, Dong Zhang, Jie Zhang, Liwei Zheng, Caiping Zhao, Juanjuan Ma, Na An & Mingyu Han

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    1. Chunhui Song
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    2. Dong Zhang
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    3. Jie Zhang
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    Correspondence to Mingyu Han.

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    Communicated by W. Wang.

    C. Song and D. Zhang contributed equally to this work.

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    11738_2016_2065_MOESM1_ESM.tif

    Figure S1 Phylogenetic tree of Malus domestica and Arabidopsis YUCCA proteins. The amino acid sequences of the YUCCA proteins were aligned with ClustalW, and the phylogenetic tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method of MEGA 5.0 software. Each node is represented by a number that indicates the bootstrap value for 1000 replicates. The scale bar represents 0.05 substitutions per sequence position. (TIFF 3025 kb)

    11738_2016_2065_MOESM2_ESM.tif

    Figure S2 Phylogenetic tree of Malus domestica and Arabidopsis PIN proteins. The amino acid sequences of the PIN proteins were aligned with ClustalW, and the phylogenetic tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method of MEGA 5.0 software. Each node is represented by a number that indicates the bootstrap value for 1000 replicates. The scale bar represents 0.1 substitutions per sequence position (TIFF 3792 kb)

    11738_2016_2065_MOESM3_ESM.tif

    Figure S3 Phylogenetic tree of Malus domestica and Arabidopsis GH3 proteins. The amino acid sequences of the GH3 proteins were aligned with ClustalW, and the phylogenetic tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method of MEGA 5.0 software. Each node is represented by a number that indicates the bootstrap value for 1000 replicates. The scale bar represents 0.05 substitutions per sequence position (TIFF 204 kb)

    11738_2016_2065_MOESM4_ESM.jpg

    Figure S4 Phylogenetic tree of Malus domestica and Arabidopsis ILR proteins. The amino acid sequences of the ILR proteins were aligned with ClustalW, and the phylogenetic tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method of MEGA 5.0 software. Each node is represented by a number that indicates the bootstrap value for 1000 replicates. The scale bar represents 0.1 substitutions per sequence position (JPEG 1353 kb)

    Figure S5 Multiple sequence alignment of the MdYUCCA proteins obtained using DNAMAN software (EMF 1367 kb)

    11738_2016_2065_MOESM6_ESM.emf

    Figure S6 Multiple sequence alignment of the MdPIN proteins obtained using DNAMAN software. Mem_trans is the consensus sequence of the Mem_trans domain family (PF03547.13) (EMF 5304 kb)

    11738_2016_2065_MOESM7_ESM.emf

    Figure S7 Multiple sequence alignment of the MdGH3 proteins obtained using DNAMAN software. GH3 is the consensus sequence of the GH3 domain family (PF03321.8) (EMF 1855 kb)

    11738_2016_2065_MOESM8_ESM.emf

    Figure S8 Multiple sequence alignment of the MdILR proteins obtained using DNAMAN software. Peptidase_M20 is the consensus sequence of the Peptidase_M20 domain family (PF01546.23) (EMF 4638 kb)

    Figure S9 Expression of MdYUCCA in the shoot tip (A), phloem (B) and root (C) of M9 and MM106 (TIFF 3392 kb)

    Figure S10 Expression of MdPIN in the shoot tip (A), phloem (B) and root (C) of M9 and MM106 (TIFF 3392 kb)

    Figure S11 Expression of MdGH3 in the shoot tip (A), phloem (B) and root (C) of M9 and MM106 (TIFF 3392 kb)

    11738_2016_2065_MOESM12_ESM.tif

    Figure S12 Expression of auxin-conjugate hydrolase genes in the shoot tip (A), phloem (B) and root (C) of M9 and MM106 (TIFF 3392 kb)

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    Song, C., Zhang, D., Zhang, J. et al. Expression analysis of key auxin synthesis, transport, and metabolism genes in different young dwarfing apple trees. Acta Physiol Plant 38, 43 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-016-2065-2

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