Abstract
Schisandra chinensis is a monoecious plant with unisex flowers. The fruit of S. chinensis is of high medical with economic value. The yield of S. chinensis fruit is related to the ratio of its female and male flowers. However, there is little research on its floral development and sex differentiation. To elucidate the possible mechanism for the sex differentiation of S. chinensis, we collected 18 samples of female and male flowers from three developmental stages and performed a comparative RNA-seq analysis aimed at identifying differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that may be related to sex differentiation. The results showed 936, 7179, and 6890 differentially expressed genes between female and male flowers at three developmental stages, respectively, and 466 candidate genes may play roles in sex differentiation. KEGG analysis showed genes involved in the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway and DNA replication pathway were essential for the development of female flowers. 51 MADS-box genes and 10 YABBY genes were identified in S. chinensis. The DEGs analysis indicated that MADS-box and YABBY genes were strongly related to the sex determination of S. chinensis. RT-qPCR confirmed the RNA-seq results of 20 differentially expressed genes, including three male-biased genes and 17 female-biased genes. A possible regulatory model of sex differentiation in S. chinensis was proposed according to our results. This study helps reveal the sex-differentiation mechanism of S. chinensis and lays the foundation for regulating the male–female ratio of S. chinensis in the future.
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Data availability
All fastq raw sequence read data have been uploaded to the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) under accession number PRJNA1027980.
References
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Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate Prof. Zhao Zhang’s help in sample collection, and Li-Hong He, Rui Xu, and Rui-Lin Xiong’s help in the experiment.
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This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 82274050) and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (Grant No. 2021-I2M-1–032).
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JC and XW collected samples. JC performed the experiments, analyzed the results, and wrote the manuscript. YC assisted in the experiment operation. XW was involved in the design of these experiments and data interpretation. YQ, BZ, and HL conceived and directed the experiments and writing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Cheng, JL., Wei, XP., Chen, Y. et al. Comparative transcriptome analysis reveals candidate genes related to the sex differentiation of Schisandra chinensis. Funct Integr Genomics 23, 344 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10142-023-01264-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10142-023-01264-0