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Comparative transcriptome analyses reveal genes related to pigmentation in the petals of a flower color variation cultivar of Rhododendron obtusum

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Abstract

Background

Rhododendron is an important woody ornamental plant, and breeding varieties with different colors is a key research goal. Although there have been a few reports on the molecular mechanisms of flower colors and color patterning in Rhododendron, it is still largely unknown what factors regulate flower pigmentation in Rhododendron.

Methods and results

In this study, the flower color variation cultivar ‘Yanzhi Mi’ and the wild-type (WT) cultivar ‘Dayuanyangjin’ were used as research objects, and the pigments and transcriptomes of their petals during five flower development stages were analyzed and compared. The results showed that derivatives of cyanidin, peonidin and pelargonidin might be responsible for the pink color of mutant petals and that the S2 stage was the key stage of flower color formation. In total, 412,910 transcripts and 2780 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in pairwise comparisons of WT and mutant petals. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses of the DEGs showed that ‘DNA-binding transcription factor activity’, ‘Flavonoid biosynthesis’ and ‘Phenylpropanoid biosynthesis’ were more active in mutant petals. Early anthocyanin pathway candidate DEGs (CHS3-CHS6, CHI, F3Hs and F3′H) were significantly correlated and were more highly expressed in mutant petals than in WT petals in the S2 stage. An R2R3-MYB unigene (TRINITY_DN55156_c1_g2) was upregulated approximately 10.5-fold in ‘Yanzhi Mi’ petals relative to ‘Dayuanyangjin’ petals in the S2 stage, and an R2R3-MYB unigene (TRINITY_DN59015_c3_g2) that was significantly downregulated in ‘Yanzhi Mi’ petals in the S2 stage was found to be closely related to Tca MYB112 in cacao.

Conclusions

Taken together, the results of the present study could shed light on the molecular basis of anthocyanin biosynthesis in two Rhododendron obtusum cultivars and may provide a genetic resource for breeding varieties with different flower colors.

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Data availability

Transcriptome raw sequence data in this study are available in SRA at NCBI with the BioSample accession number of SAMN17817099; data pertaining to the study have been included in this manuscript and supplementary materials. A pre-print of the paper exists on Research Square (https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-263287/v1).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK20190271), Jiangsu Provincial Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Project (CX (20)2030), Special Fund for Forestry Development of Jiangsu Province (sczh [2020] No.26) and Special Fund for Jiangsu Provincial Forestry Innovation and Promotion (LYKJ[2021]06).

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  1. Xiaobo Sun and Lisi He have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Leisure Agriculture, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nangjing, 210014, China

    Xiaobo Sun, Lisi He, Zhenhao Guo, Zheng Xiao, Jiale Su, Xiaoqing Liu, Huimin Zhou & Chang Li

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Horticultural Crop Genetic Improvement, Nangjing, 210014, China

    Xiaobo Sun, Lisi He, Zhenhao Guo, Zheng Xiao, Jiale Su, Xiaoqing Liu, Huimin Zhou & Chang Li

  3. Genepioneer Biotechnologies Co. Ltd, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Haidong Gao

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Contributions

JS, CL, LH and XL designed the experiments; XS, HZ, ZX handled experimental material; XS, ZX, HG and ZG were responsible for software and data processing; LH and XS writing original draft preparation; XS and ZG were responsible for review, editing and visualization. LH, HZ and CL were responsible for funding acquisition. XS and LH contributed equally to this work. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chang Li.

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Sun, X., He, L., Guo, Z. et al. Comparative transcriptome analyses reveal genes related to pigmentation in the petals of a flower color variation cultivar of Rhododendron obtusum. Mol Biol Rep 49, 2641–2653 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-021-07070-w

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