Abstract
Tulipa edulis (Miq.) Baker is an important medicinal plant with a variety of anti-cancer properties. The stolon is one of the main asexual reproductive organs of T. edulis and possesses a unique morphology. To explore the molecular mechanism of stolon formation, we performed an RNA-seq analysis of the transcriptomes of stolons at three developmental stages. In the present study, 15.49 Gb of raw data were generated and assembled into 74,006 unigenes, and a total of 2,811 simple sequence repeats were detected in T. edulis. Among the three libraries of stolons at different developmental stages, there were 5,119 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). A functional annotation analysis based on sequence similarity queries of the GO, COG, KEGG databases showed that these DEGs were mainly involved in many physiological and biochemical processes, such as material and energy metabolism, hormone signaling, cell growth, and transcription regulation. In addition, quantitative real-time PCR analysis revealed that the expression patterns of the DEGs were consistent with the transcriptome data, which further supported a role for the DEGs in stolon formation. This study provides novel resources for future genetic and molecular studies in T. edulis.
Highlights
Tulipa edulis (Miq.) Baker is a perennial herb in the Liliaceae family
The process of stolon formation can be divided into three stages: stage T1, stage T2, and stage T3
We observed that in stage T1, the location of stolon formation was in close proximity to the side of the stem base plate bulb, and the surface of early stem base was smooth (Figure 2A)
Summary
Tulipa edulis (Miq.) Baker is a perennial herb in the Liliaceae family. The bulb has been used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) under the common name “Guangcigu” and is widely used in the treatment of sore throat, scrofula, ulcer and postpartum blood stasis (Chinese Herbalism Editorial Board, 1999). Guangcigu is an important medicine for the treatment of a variety of tumors, such as throat cancer, lymphoma, and breast cancer (Yeh, 1973; Miao et al, 2015). The acquisition of Guangcigu is mainly dependent on wild resources. Due to the high market demand over the past few decades, there has been a rapid decline in the natural resourses of T. edulis (Bing et al, 2008; Ma et al, 2014). Improving the reproductive index of T. edulis is an urgent issue for its artificial cultivation
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