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RNA-seq Analysis Reveals Ethylene-Mediated Reproductive Organ Development and Abscission in Soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.)

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Abstract

The high level of abscission of developing reproductive organs in soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) causes severe yield loss. The role of ethylene in hastening organ abscission has been well documented. However, little is known about the regulatory mechanism by which ethylene influences abscission in soybean. Ethylene synthesis inhibitor [0.5 mM silver thiosulfate (STS)], ethylene-releasing compound [400 mg/L ethephon (ETH)], and water were applied twice with a 5-day interval between the applications. The STS-treated plants produced more flowers and pods, resulting in 55.6 % greater seed yield. ETH treatment significantly increased (P < 0.05) the abscission rate of flowers and pods. Three digital gene expression libraries (STS-, ETH- and control library) were constructed. Illumina sequencing of the three libraries was used to identify 9.7 to 10.5 million unigenes. Strong correlations were observed among different gene expression profiles and specific metabolite groups (such as plant hormone biosynthesis and signal transduction; starch and sucrose metabolism; and secondary metabolism) suggesting the importance of these metabolic pathways during ethylene regulation. Potential ethylene target genes such as 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC)-oxidase, 2C protein phosphatases (PP2Cs), MAT1, acetyltransferase, bidirectional sugar transporter SWEET1-like, and so on were identified. These results suggest that ethylene regulates flower and pod abscission in soybean by direct transcriptional regulation of genes that are involved in the metabolic and regulatory processes related to both floral organ development and abscission. Thus, these findings further elucidate the critical role of ethylene in transcriptional regulation of reproductive organ development and abscission.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Prof. Guohua Mi for his comments and advice. We also thank anonymous reviewers for critical and constructive suggestions to improve this manuscript. This study was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.31000691/C130301), Special Foundation for Young Scientists of Jilin Province, China (Grant No.201201084) and China Scholarship Council Project (201208220004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Sciences, Jilin Normal University, Siping, Jilin, 136000, People’s Republic of China

    Yun-Qing Cheng, Jian-Feng Liu, Chunming Liu & Qiang Liu

  2. Agro-Biotechnology Research Institute, Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changchun, Jilin, 130024, People’s Republic of China

    Xiangdong Yang & Rui Ma

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  1. Yun-Qing Cheng
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  2. Jian-Feng Liu
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Correspondence to Jian-Feng Liu.

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Supplement file 1

Classification and percentages of raw reads of STS, Control and ETH treated sample. Only Adaptor Number of reads containing adaptor, Containing N number of reads containing N, Low Quality number of low quality reads, Clean Reads the number of clean reads. (DOC 73 kb)

Supplement file 2

Detailed information of plant hormone signal transduction pathway in KEGG and the DEGs of STS treatment compared to the control treatment in the pathway. Red borders Up-regulated genes green borders down-regulated genes, black borders Non-change genes. (DOC 40 kb)

Supplement file 3

Detailed information of plant hormone signal transduction pathway in KEGG and the DEGs of ETH treatment compared to the control treatment in the pathway. Red borders Up-regulated genes green borders down-regulated genes, black borders Non-change genes. (DOC 44 kb)

Supplement file 4

Several members of the ethylene receptors gene families were induced rapidly after ETH treatment and inhibited by STS treatment in ethylene signaling (DOC 42 kb)

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Cheng, YQ., Liu, JF., Yang, X. et al. RNA-seq Analysis Reveals Ethylene-Mediated Reproductive Organ Development and Abscission in Soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.). Plant Mol Biol Rep 31, 607–619 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-012-0533-4

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