Abstract
As a well-known garden plant, many beautiful iris flower phenotypes and leaf variegation have been created. Iris japonica var. variegata is a variant of I. japonica that has a white–green striped leaf color genotype. It has high horticultural value, but its underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we analyzed the physiological features and ultrastructural observation of white and green tissues. In our study, the results showed that the phenotype was related to the abnormal chloroplast morphology and deficiencies in chlorophyll. To understand the mechanisms for these observations, we used Illumina sequencing technology to identify the transcriptome and profile differentially expressed genes (DEGs). We identified 1327 DEGs in white leaf tissues compared with green leaf tissues, including 342 upregulated genes and 985 downregulated DEGs. The downregulated DEGs included porphyrin and chlorophyll metabolism, chloroplast development, and photosynthetic pathways. Changes in the expression of genes (CYSG and GLK) involved in these pathways could be responsible for the phenotype of I. japonica var. variegata. To our knowledge, this is the first time that evidence has been provided to better understand the primary cause of chloroplast structure in white–green striped leaves for iris and will be valuable for the iris breeding industry.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province (2022NSFSC1049, 0099) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 22206140).
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Conceptualization, Qinglin He and XiaoFang Yu; formal analysis, Qinglin He, Linjie Yue and Shurui Li; writing—original draft preparation, Linjie Yue, Xiaofang Yu, Qinglin He, Yunhao Zheng, Zhiwen Wang, Heting Wang, Rouzhi Liu and Xin Huang; review and provided valuable suggestions, XiaoFang Yu, Xue Xiao, Lijuan Yang, and Ting Lei.
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Yu, X., Yue, L., He, Q. et al. Transcriptome analysis of Iris japonica var. variegata for chlorophyll and photosynthesis-related pathways involved in white–green striped leaves. Acta Physiol Plant 46, 12 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-023-03638-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-023-03638-0