A Transcriptomic Analysis Targeting Genes Involved in the Floral Transition of Winter-Flowering Chrysanthemum

Abstract

The genetic control of the floral transition in winter-flowering chrysanthemum is not well investigated. Here, RNA-seq technology was applied to explore the transcriptome of the variety ‘QD026’ at five developmental time points between the fully vegetative stage and flowering. The number of clean reads obtained per library was around 5 × 107. Under short-day growing conditions, floral induction was accompanied by a substantial number of differentially transcribed genes: these included constans-like and embryonic flower in the photoperiod pathway, and flowering locus c, short vegetative phase, and squamosa promoter-binding protein-like genes in the ambient temperature pathway. A quantitative PCR assay was successfully used to validate the differential transcription of a sample of the genes identified by the RNA-seq analysis as being differentially transcribed.