Gene regulation network analyses of pistil development in papaya

BMC Genomics

Zhenyang Liao¹  Fei Dong¹  Lele Xu¹  Amy Marshall-Colon²  Ray Ming²  Juan Liu³ 

[1] Center for Genomics and Biotechnology, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Haixia Applied Plant Systems Biology, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, 350002, Fuzhou, Fujian, China;Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 61801, Urbana, IL, USA;The Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 430074, Wuhan, Hubei, China;

关键词: Carica papaya;    Pistil development;    Gene regulatory network;    Transcription factor;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12864-021-08197-7

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe pistil is an essential part of flowers that functions in the differentiation of the sexes and reproduction in plants. The stigma on the pistil can accept pollen to allow fertilization and seed development. Papaya (Carica papaya L.) is a dioecious plant, where female flowers exhibit normal pistil, while the male flowers exhibit aborted pistil at a late stage of pistil development.ResultsThe developmental stages of papaya pistil were analyzed after first dividing it into slices representing the primordium stage 1 (S1), the pre-meiotic stages S2, post-meiotic stage S3, and the mitotic stage S4. The SS scoring algorithm analysis of genes preferentially expressed at different stages revealed differentially expressed genes between male and female flowers. A transcription factor regulatory network for each stage based on the genes that are differentially expressed between male and female flowers was constructed. Some transcription factors related to pistil development were revealed based on the analysis of regulatory networks such as CpAGL11, CpHEC2, and CpSUPL. Based on the specific expression of genes, constructed a gene regulatory subnetwork with CpAGL11-CpSUPL-CpHEC2 functioning as the core. Analysis of the functionally enriched terms in this network reveals several differentially expressed genes related to auxin/ brassinosteroid signal transduction in the plant hormone signal transduction pathway. At the same time, significant differences in the expression of auxin and brassinosteroid synthesis-related genes between male and female flowers at different developmental stages were detected.ConclusionsThe pistil abortion of papaya might be caused by the lack of expression or decreased expression of some transcription factors and hormone-related genes, affecting hormone signal transduction or hormone biosynthesis. Analysis of aborted and normally developing pistil in papaya provided new insights into the molecular mechanism of pistil development and sex differentiation in dioecious papaya.

【 授权许可】

CC BY