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Characterization and expression of abscisic acid signal transduction genes during mulberry fruit ripening

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Abstract

The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays an important role in fruit development. To analyze the transcriptional regulation of ABA signaling pathway-related genes during mulberry (Morus alba L.) fruit development and ripening, 17 genes participating in ABA signal transduction were isolated from the Morus notabilis genome database, including five MnPYL, six MnPP2C, and six MnSnRK2 genes. The result of multiple sequence alignment revealed that their functional amino acid residues and domains are conserved within each gene family. The expression profiles of ABA signaling pathway-related genes in the fruit of Morus atropurpurea cv. Jialing No. 40 were measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The transcripts of MaPYL4, MaPP2C5, and MaSnRK2.6 were expressed at a relatively higher level during the entire development process. Moreover, the transcript levels of MaPYL1/3/5, MaPP2C2/4/5/6, and MaSnRK2.3/2.6 were lower during the early-maturation stage and higher during the post-maturation stage, which suggests that they may play a vital role in regulating mulberry fruit ripening. In addition, these genes showed strong responses to exogenous ABA, fluridone, glucose, and sucrose. This study also indicated that exogenous ABA, sucrose, and glucose may promote fruit maturity, while fluridone significantly inhibits fruit ripening.

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Acknowledgements

The research was financially supported by Graduate Research and Innovation Projects of Chongqing (Grant No. CYS2015070), the Special Fund for Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest of China (Grant No. 201403064), and the China Agriculture Research System (Grant No. CARS-22).

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  1. Panpan Zhu and Yuxiang Cai contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Biotechnology, State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, People’s Republic of China

    Panpan Zhu, Yuxiang Cai, Jian Yu, Aichun Zhao, Yanmei Liang, Changying Liu, Chuanhong Wang & Maode Yu

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  1. Panpan Zhu
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Zhu, P., Cai, Y., Yu, J. et al. Characterization and expression of abscisic acid signal transduction genes during mulberry fruit ripening. Acta Physiol Plant 39, 149 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-017-2442-5

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