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Transcriptome analysis reveals anthocyanin acts as a protectant in Begonia semperflorens under low temperature

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Abstract

Anthocyanins are natural bioactive pigments in plants that play important roles in many physiological functions. They are found in various tissues and can protect plants against different stress conditions. Anthocyanins are synthesized and accumulate in nutritional organs, which is crucial for plants to adapt to and resist adverse environmental conditions, including high exposure to light, ultraviolet light, low temperatures, drought, pests and disease. Some progress has been made in understanding the adaptability of anthocyanin to the external environment. Begonia semperflorens is an excellent model for studying the function and regulation of anthocyanin synthesis. To investigate the biosynthesis and regulation of anthocyanins, RNA sequencing techniques were employed to investigate anthocyanin biosynthesis induced by low temperature in B. semperflorens leaves. A total of 74,779 unigenes with a mean length of 1249 bp were assembled. Functional annotations were implemented using five protein databases. Differentially expressed genes involved in the process of anthocyanin biosynthesis were identified. This study represents the first report of a broad-scale gene expression study on B. semperflorens.

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Abbreviations

WBM:

WD40-bHLH-MYB

UFGT:

Flavonoid 3-O-glucosyltransferase

LT:

Low temperature

CK:

Control

COG:

Clusters of orthologous groups

GO:

Gene ontology

KEGG:

The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes

DEGs:

Differentially expressed genes

Nr:

Non-redundant

FDR:

False discovery rate

4CL:

4-Coumarate: Coenzyme A Ligase

ANS:

Anthocyanidin synthase

CHI:

Chalcone isomerase

CHS:

Chalcone synthase

DFR:

Dihydroflavonol 4-reductase

GST:

Glutathione S-transferase

PAL:

Phenylalanine ammonialyase

ROS:

Active oxygen free radicals

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31100562) and The Key Scientific Research Project of High Education in Henan Province (Grant No. 15A220006).

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Author notes

  1. Huitao Bi and Jiawan Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Forestry, Henan Agricultural University, Nongye Road 63, Zhengzhou, 450002, China

    Huitao Bi, Meili Guo, Jiawan Wang, Ying Qu & Kaiming Zhang

  2. Fuzhou Institute of Vegetable Sciences, Fuzhou, China

    Wenli Du

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  1. Huitao Bi
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  2. Meili Guo
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  3. Jiawan Wang
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  4. Ying Qu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kaiming Zhang.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results.

Additional information

Communicated by R. Baczek-Kwinta.

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11738_2017_2578_MOESM1_ESM.png

Fig. A1 Correlation coefficients of the expression of duplicate samples. The x-axis is the logarithmic value of T01 (one sample), and the y-axis is the logarithmic value of the corresponding duplicate sample (T02) (PNG 35 kb)

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Bi, H., Guo, M., Wang, J. et al. Transcriptome analysis reveals anthocyanin acts as a protectant in Begonia semperflorens under low temperature. Acta Physiol Plant 40, 10 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-017-2578-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-017-2578-3

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