Abstract
The banana is a typical climacteric fruit that undergoes ethylene dependent ripening. During fruit ripening, ethylene production triggers a developmental cascade that results in a series of physiological and biochemical changes. The fruit transcriptomes of untransformated wild-type (WT) and RNAi transgenic banana plants for Mh-ACO1 and Mh-ACO2 have been previously sequenced and analyzed, and most of the differentially expressed genes were enriched in ‘carbon fixation in photosynthetic organism’, ‘cysteine and methionine metabolism’, ‘citrate cycle (tricarboxylic acid cycle, TCA cycle)’, and ‘starch and sucrose metabolism’ based on Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) annotation. In this research, we investigated the expression fluctuations of genes involved in carbohydrate metabolism affected by alterations of ethylene biosynthesis associated with ripening in banana fruits. Expression profiles of sucrose synthase, sucrose phosphate synthase, neutral invertase, and acidic invertase/β-fructofuranosidase, as analyzed by Avadis and Trinity, showed that both analyses were complementary and consistent. The overall gene expression tendency was confirmed by the implementation of quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with mRNAs of banana fruits in Mh-ACO1 and Mh-ACO2 RNAi transgenic plants. These results indicated that altered expression of genes associated with ethylene biosynthesis strongly influenced the expression levels of genes related to starch and sucrose metabolism, as well as the glycolysis pathway in ripening banana fruits.
Highlights
The bananas (Musa spp.) is an important staple food source in subtropical and tropical regions and is the largest herbaceous evergreen monocot belonging to the genus Musa
In this study, we focused on expression patterns and levels of genes involved in ethylene production and carbohydrate metabolism in Mh-ACO1 and Mh-ACO2 RNA interference (RNAi) transgenic banana plants in the search for a possible link between these two pathways in ripening banana fruits, both pathways are distinct in terms of biochemical function
We found out that altered expression of genes associated with ethylene biosynthesis strongly influenced the expression levels of genes related to starch and sucrose metabolism in ripening banana fruits
Summary
The bananas (Musa spp.) is an important staple food source in subtropical and tropical regions and is the largest herbaceous evergreen monocot belonging to the genus Musa. Banana is cultivated as a cash crop and is a major annual crop in Southeast Asia. The sweetness of a ripe banana is contributed by soluble sugar accumulation that is biosynthesized from the starch reserve during the respiratory climacteric rise. The average starch content of banana fruits in the pre-climacteric period is 70–80%. The starch is almost completely converted into soluble sugars during ripening, which results in less than 1% starch content at the end of the climacteric period [1,2,3]. Glucose, and fructose are main soluble sugars detected in ripening banana [1,4].
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