Abstract
Evaluation of transcriptome data in combination with QTL information has been applied in many crops to study the expression of genes responsible for specific phenotypes. In oil palm, the mesocarp oil extracted from E. oleifera × E. guineensis interspecific hybrids is known to have lower palmitic acid (C16:0) content compared to pure African palms. The present study demonstrates the effectiveness of transcriptome data in revealing the expression profiles of genes in the fatty acid (FA) and triacylglycerol (TAG) biosynthesis processes in interspecific hybrids. The transcriptome assembly yielded 43,920 putative genes of which a large proportion were homologous to known genes in the public databases. Most of the genes encoding key enzymes involved in the FA and TAG synthesis pathways were identified. Of these, 27, including two candidate genes located within the QTL associated with C16:0 content, showed differential expression between developmental stages, populations and/or palms with contrasting C16:0 content. Further evaluation using quantitative real-time PCR revealed that differentially expressed patterns are generally consistent with those observed in the transcriptome data. Our results also suggest that different isoforms are likely to be responsible for some of the variation observed in FA composition of interspecific hybrids.
Highlights
Evaluation of transcriptome data in combination with QTL information has been applied in many crops to study the expression of genes responsible for specific phenotypes
High level expression of a number of key genes in fatty acid (FA) and TAG biosynthesis pathways was found to be positively correlated with higher oil content in the mesocarp tissue[19,20,21]
These findings lay a good foundation and suggest that the expression profile of FA and TAG synthesis genes has a strong effect on the observed phenotype, which is the fatty acid composition (FAC)
Summary
Evaluation of transcriptome data in combination with QTL information has been applied in many crops to study the expression of genes responsible for specific phenotypes. The present study demonstrates the effectiveness of transcriptome data in revealing the expression profiles of genes in the fatty acid (FA) and triacylglycerol (TAG) biosynthesis processes in interspecific hybrids. Large-scale exploitation of NGS data for studying regulation and transcription of genes that govern FA and TAG synthesis has been reported for oil palm. Tranbarger et al.[16] reconstructed the palm oil biosynthesis pathway in the mesocarp tissue They revealed that the plastidial FA synthesis and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-based TAG synthesis are regulated by two distinct transcriptional programmes. They showed that FA synthesis is most likely regulated by WRINKLED (WRI1), which encodes an Apetala 2 (AP2) ethylene response element binding protein family transcription factor (TF). The interaction network was further expanded by examining the co-expression of 23 genes from the oil palm FA synthesis pathway with other biological processes i.e. glycolysis, starch metabolism, plastid biogenesis and auxin transportation[20]
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