Abstract
In cucurbitaceous crops, sex differentiation of flower buds is a crucial developmental process that directly affects fruit yield. Here we showed that the induction of female flower was the highest in the blue light-treated monoecious cucumber plants compared with that in other light qualities (white, green and red). High-throughput RNA-Seq analysis of the shoot apexes identified a total of 74 differently-expressed genes (DEGs), in which 52 up-regulated and 22 down-regulated under the blue light compared with that in white light. The DEGs were mainly involved in metabolic pathways, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, plant hormone signal transduction, starch and sucrose metabolism and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis. While the ethylene and gibberellins synthesis and signaling related genes were down-regulated, the abscisic acid and auxin signal transduction pathways were up-regulated by the blue light treatment. Furthermore, the blue light treatment up-regulated the transcription of genes relating to photosynthesis, starch and sucrose metabolism. Meanwhile, the blue light suppressed the GA3 concentration but promoted the concentrations of auxin and photosynthetic pigments. Taken together, the results suggest that the blue light-induced female floral sex expression is closely associated with the blue light-induced changes in abscisic acid, auxin, gibberellins, photosynthesis, starch and sucrose metabolism pathways, which is potentially different from the traditional ethylene-dependent pathway.
Highlights
Sex differentiation is an important plant developmental process mediated by the selective arrest of either the male stamen or female carpel during the flower development
A recent study showed that the biologically inactive precursor GA9 can move from ovaries to sepal/petal tissues and convert into bioactive GA4, which is necessary for the female flower development in cucumber[14]
To determine the effect of different light qualities on sex expression of cucumber, we examine the percentage of nodes with female flowers of cucumber under monochromatic such as blue (B), green (G), red (R), and white light (W)
Summary
Sex differentiation is an important plant developmental process mediated by the selective arrest of either the male stamen or female carpel during the flower development. Three major gene loci related to 1-aminocyclopropane-1 -carboxylate synthase (ACS) in ethylene (ET) biosynthesis pathway have been shown to control sex determination in cucumber. In addition to light intensity and photoperiod, specific light quality such as blue (B) light can influence a series of morphological and physiological processes in plants including phototropism, hypocotyl elongation, leaf morphology, chlorophyll fluorescence, stomatal movement, leaf photosynthesis, and genes expression[20,21]. The results of this study shed new light on light quality-regulated cucumber sex expression, which might have important application in cucumber cultivation under controlled light environments
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