Early differential gene expression profiling of harvest-induced senescence in detached Arabidopsis plants

Abstract

After a series of stresses, detached plant organs such as leafy vegetables and cut flowers begin to appear declining in quality and then finally senescence. Comprehending, plants’ response to multiple stresses may result in new opportunities to extend the shelf life of postharvest. We investigated physiological responses of Arabidopsis plants after harvest and analyzed global gene transcription in dark-stored detached Arabidopsis plants leaves (DSD). Detached darkened plants of Arabidopsis were stored for 12 h in airtight boxes. Multiple stresses caused a distinguished decrease in chlorophyll, protein content and premature senescence of leaves. The microarray analysis revealed that 852 transcripts were upregulated and 1004 transcripts were downregulated, respectively, more than twofold. A gene ontology test and biological process analysis suggested that activated genes were mostly associated with regulation of transcription, secondary metabolism, response to water deprivation, signal transduction, and other stress responses. Meanwhile, genes that were downregulated were involved in protein biosynthesis, protein folding, lipid catabolism, ribosome biogenesis and assembly, ATP binding, and photosynthesis. Gene expression analysis data suggested that the leaves of detached Arabidopsis plants responded to integrated stresses by regulating diverse gene expression in leaves.