Abstract
BackgroundDifferent from herbaceous plants, the woody plants undergo a long-period vegetative stage to achieve floral transition. They then turn into seasonal plants, flowering annually. In this study, a preliminary model of gene regulations for seasonal pistillate flowering in hickory (Carya cathayensis) was proposed. The genome-wide dynamic transcriptome was characterized via the joint-approach of RNA sequencing and microarray analysis.ResultsDifferential transcript abundance analysis uncovered the dynamic transcript abundance patterns of flowering correlated genes and their major functions based on Gene Ontology (GO) analysis. To explore pistillate flowering mechanism in hickory, a comprehensive flowering gene regulatory network based on Arabidopsis thaliana was constructed by additional literature mining. A total of 114 putative flowering or floral genes including 31 with differential transcript abundance were identified in hickory. The locations, functions and dynamic transcript abundances were analyzed in the gene regulatory networks. A genome-wide co-expression network for the putative flowering or floral genes shows three flowering regulatory modules corresponding to response to light abiotic stimulus, cold stress, and reproductive development process, respectively. Totally 27 potential flowering or floral genes were recruited which are meaningful to understand the hickory specific seasonal flowering mechanism better.ConclusionsFlowering event of pistillate flower bud in hickory is triggered by several pathways synchronously including the photoperiod, autonomous, vernalization, gibberellin, and sucrose pathway. Totally 27 potential flowering or floral genes were recruited from the genome-wide co-expression network function module analysis. Moreover, the analysis provides a potential FLC-like gene based vernalization pathway and an 'AC’ model for pistillate flower development in hickory. This work provides an available framework for pistillate flower development in hickory, which is significant for insight into regulation of flowering and floral development of woody plants.
Highlights
Different from herbaceous plants, the woody plants undergo a long-period vegetative stage to achieve floral transition
Current flowering network based on A. thaliana could response to the ambient-temperature influence, the ambient-temperature pathway was not considered as an independent in the current flowering gene regulatory network
Transcription dynamics of pistillate flowering correlated genes and their involved major functions were characterized based on the k-means clustering and Gene Ontology (GO) annotation analysis of differentially transcribed genes, which provides system-level insights into the pistillate flowering
Summary
Different from herbaceous plants, the woody plants undergo a long-period vegetative stage to achieve floral transition They turn into seasonal plants, flowering annually. Flowering is a vital event in plant growth and development through which alternation of generations from vegetative growth to reproductive growth is accomplished [1] It is an intricate biological and morphological process which is regulated by a large number of genes. Vernalization of the older A. alpine plants reduces expression of floral repressor PEP1 and activates AaSOC1 and AaLFY, promotes flowering [15]. This developmental transition in perennials is probably more complex than in other plants and the molecular mechanisms are less well understood. Juvenility and polycarpy, considered as two different processes in perennials, might be related [16]
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