Abstract
Almond is one of the most featured nut crops owing to its high nutritional value. However, due to three different waves of flower and fruitlet drop, fruit drop is a major concern for growers. In this study, we carried out a time-course transcriptome analysis to investigate gene expression differences between normal and abnormal fruitlet development. By de novo assembly analysis, we identified 33,577 unigenes and provided their functional annotations. In total, we identified 7,469 differentially expressed genes and observed the most apparent difference between normal and abnormal fruits at 12 and 17 days after flowering. Their biological functions were enriched in carbon metabolism, carbon fixation in photosynthetic organisms and plant hormone signal transduction. RT-qPCR validated the expression pattern of 14 representative genes, including glycosyltransferase like family 2, MYB39, IAA13, gibberellin-regulated protein 11-like and POD44, which confirmed the reliability of our transcriptome data. This study provides an insight into the association between abnormal fruit development and carbohydrate signaling from the early developmental stages and could be served as useful information for understanding the regulatory mechanisms related to almond fruit drop.
Highlights
Almond is one of the most featured nut crops owing to its high nutritional value
Prunus amygdalus Batsch), is the most important temperate nut crop regards to commercial production, and several hypotheses indicated that it originated from Iran and adapted to harsh climates[1,2]
The fruit setting normally occurs at the 7th day after flowering (DAF)
Summary
Almond is one of the most featured nut crops owing to its high nutritional value. due to three different waves of flower and fruitlet drop, fruit drop is a major concern for growers. We carried out a time-course transcriptome analysis to investigate gene expression differences between normal and abnormal fruitlet development. We identified 7,469 differentially expressed genes and observed the most apparent difference between normal and abnormal fruits at 12 and 17 days after flowering. Their biological functions were enriched in carbon metabolism, carbon fixation in photosynthetic organisms and plant hormone signal transduction. High ethylene production and low glucose levels were proposed to contribute to the increasing young fruit abscission rate[20] Despite of these facts, the molecular understanding of the regulatory genes of carbohydrate metabolism involved in almond fruitlet abnormal development and physiological drop is still elusive. The transcriptome analysis associated to almond abscission has not been reported yet
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