Abstract
Orchidaceae is one of the most abundant and diverse families in the plant kingdom and its unique developmental patterns have drawn the attention of many evolutionary biologists. Particular areas of interest have included the co-evolution of pollinators and distinct floral structures, and symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal flora. However, comprehensive studies to decipher the molecular basis of growth and development in orchids remain scarce. Cell proliferation governed by cell-cycle regulation is fundamental to growth and development of the plant body. We took advantage of recently released transcriptome information to systematically isolate and annotate the core cell-cycle regulators in the moth orchid Phalaenopsis aphrodite. Our data verified that Phalaenopsis cyclin-dependent kinase A (CDKA) is an evolutionarily conserved CDK. Expression profiling studies suggested that core cell-cycle genes functioning during the G1/S, S, and G2/M stages were preferentially enriched in the meristematic tissues that have high proliferation activity. In addition, subcellular localization and pairwise interaction analyses of various combinations of CDKs and cyclins, and of E2 promoter-binding factors and dimerization partners confirmed interactions of the functional units. Furthermore, our data showed that expression of the core cell-cycle genes was coordinately regulated during pollination-induced reproductive development. The data obtained establish a fundamental framework for study of the cell-cycle machinery in Phalaenopsis orchids.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11103-013-0128-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Orchidaceae is one of the most abundant and diverse families in the plant kingdom and its unique developmental patterns have drawn the attention of many evolutionary biologists
The isolated genes belonged to the Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs), CYC, Rb, E2F/DP, Wee1, and Cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors (CKIs) gene families
A. thaliana (At) least one member of each class of CDK was identified in the P. aphrodite genome (Supplementary Table S1)
Summary
Orchidaceae is one of the most abundant and diverse families in the plant kingdom and its unique developmental patterns have drawn the attention of many evolutionary biologists. Cell proliferation governed by cell-cycle regulation is fundamental to growth and development of the plant body. Our data showed that expression of the core cell-cycle genes was coordinately regulated during pollination-induced reproductive development. The core cell-cycle genes are central regulators of cell division and a common converging point for internal and external signals during growth and development. Cell division machinery governing cell proliferation has to be carefully regulated in order to meet differentiation and fate specification requirements during plant development. Based on a homology-based annotation strategy, more than 90 cell-cycle genes have been classified in Arabidopsis (Vandepoele et al 2002; Menges et al 2005) How these cell-cycle proteins are coordinated to drive cell division and regulate differentiation programs in plants remains largely unclear
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