Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Genes Respond to Chlorophyll Deficiency in Green and Yellow Leaves of Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat

Gang Shao,Yuqing Zhu,Qian Hu,Sumei Chen,Hua Zhang,Ziyan Qian,Rui Liu,Jiafu Jiang,Fadi Chen,Likai Wang

doi:10.3390/horticulturae8010014

Gang Shao, Yuqing Zhu + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae8010014

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Abstract

Chlorophyll is vital for photosynthesis to produce sugars and other useful biochemical products in green plants. However, the molecular effects of chlorophyll deficiency in Chrysanthemum are largely unknown. In this study, we identified a bud sport mutant chrysanthemum belonging to the variety ‘Nannong Binyun’, which has yellow branches. Plant physiological studies have shown that the yellow color is revealed due to chlorophyll loss. RNA extracts of yellow and green tissues were analyzed using high-throughput RNA-sequencing, and a total of 11,649 tissue enriched unigenes that respond to chlorophyll deficiency were identified, including 4803 unigenes upregulated in yellow tissues and 6846 unigenes in green tissues. GO analysis revealed that these tissue-enriched genes may involve in the physiological processes of chlorophyll accumulation and photosynthesis. In addition, many DEGs from the families of AP2-EREBP, bHLH, MYB, and FAR1 that are associated with plant development and stress response were detected. Our study found that most of the genes from the GRAS family were downregulated in yellow leaves, indicating their putative roles in stem cell maintenance and possible contribution to leaf size determination.

Highlights

Published: 23 December 2021Green plants contain chlorophyll that can absorb and convert light through photosynthesis into chemical energy that plants use to produce sugars and other biochemical products for growth and development
To obtain a functional insight into the tissue-enriched unigenes in both types of leaf tissues, gene ontology (GO) analysis was performed and we found that GO terms for unigenes upregulated in yellow tissues are enriched in the plant development and metabolic pathways, such as carbohydrate metabolism, monooxygenase and glutamate dehydrogenase (NAD+) activity, which are associated with photosynthesis (Figure 4B)
We further found that the transcription factor (TF) from ABI3VP1, NAC, RWP-RK, and FAR1 families are highly enriched in the unigenes upregulated in yellow tissues, while bHLH, HB, C2C2-Dof, MADS, G2-like, and C2H2 families are highly enriched in green tissues (Figures 4E and S3B)

Summary

Introduction

Published: 23 December 2021Green plants contain chlorophyll that can absorb and convert light through photosynthesis into chemical energy that plants use to produce sugars and other biochemical products for growth and development. When a green plant encounters stress conditions or at certain developmental stages, the color of the plant may change from green to yellow due to the lack/loss of chlorophyll. Various types of mutations that contribute to defects in chlorophyll synthesis or chloroplast morphogenesis have been identified in several plant species [1]. Permanent chlorophyll-deficient mutations are common in a wide variety of cultivated and natural plant species, as well as in artificially induced mutant cultivars [1,7,8]. These mutants would contribute to the discovery of genes controlling chloroplast development and facilitate our understanding of the mechanisms underlying chlorophyll deficiency. Numerous genes have been identified to control chlorophyll synthesis or chloroplast

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