Wuhan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan 430070, Hubei, China.
Genes (Basel). 2020 Mar 27;11(4):359. doi: 10.3390/genes11040359.
The bottle gourd () is an important horticultural and medicinal crop with high nutritional value. This study aimed at examining the molecular regulation of fruit size in bottle gourd. We performed transcriptome sequencing of two bottle gourd cultivars differing in their fruit size. The average fruit length and weight of the cultivar Hang (39.48 cm/624.4 g) were higher than those of the cultivar USA (10.34 cm/152.8 g) at maturity. Transcriptome sequencing and assembly resulted in 89,347 unigenes. A total of 1250 differentially expressed genes (DEG) were found between the two cultivars, including 422 upregulated genes and 828 downregulated genes in Hang as compared to USA. Genes related to cell wall metabolism, phytohormones, cell cycle, and cell division showed significant differential expression between the two cultivars. DEGs encoding transcription factors (TF) from nine TF families were also identified. The ethylene response factor family was the most enriched among these families. Our study provides a basis for further investigations of the molecular regulation of fruit size in bottle gourd.
葫芦是一种具有高营养价值的重要园艺和药用作物。本研究旨在研究葫芦果实大小的分子调控机制。我们对两个果实大小不同的葫芦品种进行了转录组测序。成熟时，品种“杭”（39.48 厘米/624.4 克）的平均果长和果重均高于品种“USA”（10.34 厘米/152.8 克）。转录组测序和组装得到了 89347 个 unigenes。在两个品种之间共发现了 1250 个差异表达基因（DEG），与 USA 相比，Hang 中有 422 个上调基因和 828 个下调基因。与细胞壁代谢、植物激素、细胞周期和细胞分裂相关的基因在两个品种之间表现出显著的差异表达。还鉴定到了来自 9 个 TF 家族的编码转录因子（TF）的 DEGs。在这些家族中，乙烯反应因子家族最为丰富。本研究为进一步研究葫芦果实大小的分子调控机制提供了基础。
