Abstract
Date palm provides both staple food and gardening for the Middle East and North African countries for thousands of years. Its fruits have diversified significantly, such as nutritional content, size, length, weight color, and ripping process. Dates palm represent an excellent model system for the study of fruit development and diversity of fruit-bearing palm species that produce the most versatile fruit types as compared to other plant families. Using Roche/454 GS FLX instrument, we acquired 7.6 million sequence tags from seven fruiting stages (F1–F7). Over 99% of the raw reads are assembled, and the numbers of isotigs (equivalent to transcription units or unigenes) range from 30,684 to 40,378 during different fruiting stages. We annotated isotigs using BLASTX and BLASTN, and mapped 74% of the isotigs to known functional sequences or genes. Based on gene ontology categorization and pathway analysis, we have identified 10 core cell division genes, 18 ripening related genes, and 7 starch metabolic enzymes, which are involved as nutrition storage and sugar/starch metabolisms. We noticed that many metabolic pathways vary significantly during fruit development, and carbohydrate metabolism (especially sugar synthesis) is particularly prominent during fruit ripening. Transcriptomics study on various fruiting stages of date palm shows complicated metabolic activities during fruit development, ripening, synthesis and accumulation of starch enzymes and other related sugars. Most Genes are highly expressed in early stages of development, while late developmental stages are critical for fruit ripening including most of the metabolism associated ones.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11103-012-9890-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L. 2n = 36) (Solimann and Al-Mayah 1978) is a sociocultural symbol for Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries) with long agriculture history (Morton 1987)
For the Gene ontology (GO) functional classification, in molecular function category both of binding and catalytic activity of genes were expressed at highest level in F1 stage; in the cellular component category, cell was expressed at the highest level in F1 stage; in biological process category, both cellular process and metabolic process expressed at the highest level in F1stage (Additional file3, Table S1)
The regulation of cell cycle gene expression is complex, and it is possible that the core cell cycle gene transcript is involved in controlling cell division during fruit development (Menges et al 2003, 2005; Menges and Murray 2002; Sorrell et al 2001)
Summary
2n = 36) (Solimann and Al-Mayah 1978) is a sociocultural symbol for Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries) with long agriculture history (Morton 1987). It is a major food crops in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and many other. Plant Mol Biol (2012) 78:617–626 places with suitable climates (Al-Mssalllem 1996). All vegetative and reproductive parts of this plant species are of some economic, nutritional, or medicinal importance. Date palm used to be the main nutrient for the inhabitants of Arabian Peninsula. Genomic data for the date palm have just started to become available (Al-Dous et al 2011), (Yang et al 2010) but detailed and high-quality gene annotations and genome assembly are yet to come
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
