Abolghasemi Reza, Haghighi Maryam, Etemadi Nematollah, Wang Shui, Soorni Aboozar
Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran.
College of Life Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China.
BMC Plant Biol. 2021 Apr 14;21(1):179. doi: 10.1186/s12870-021-02956-0.
Bolting refers to the early flowering stem production on agricultural and horticultural crops before harvesting. Indeed, bolting is an event induced by the coordinated effects of various environmental factors and endogenous genetic components, which cause a large reduction in the quality and productivity of vegetable crops like spinach. However, little is known about the signaling pathways and molecular functions involved in bolting mechanisms in spinach. The genetic information regarding the transition from vegetative growth to the reproductive stage in spinach would represent an advantage to regulate bolting time and improvement of resistant cultivars to minimize performance loss.
To investigate the key genes and their genetic networks controlling spinach bolting, we performed RNA-seq analysis on early bolting accession Kashan and late-bolting accession Viroflay at both vegetative and reproductive stages and found a significant number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) ranging from 195 to 1230 in different comparisons. These genes were mainly associated with the signaling pathways of vernalization, photoperiod/circadian clock, gibberellin, autonomous, and aging pathways. Gene ontology analysis uncovered terms associated with carbohydrate metabolism, and detailed analysis of expression patterns for genes of Fructose-1, 6-bisphosphate aldolase, TREHALOSE-6-PHOSPHATE SYNTHASE 1, FLOWERING PROMOTING FACTOR 1, EARLY FLOWERING, GIGANTEA, and MADS-box proteins revealed their potential roles in the initiating or delaying of bolting.
This study is the first report on identifying bolting and flowering-related genes based on transcriptome sequencing in spinach, which provides insight into bolting control and can be useful for molecular breeding programs and further study in the regulation of the genetic mechanisms related to bolting in other vegetable crops.
抽薹是指农业和园艺作物在收获前过早产生花茎。实际上，抽薹是由各种环境因素和内源性遗传成分的协同作用所引发的事件，这会导致菠菜等蔬菜作物的品质和产量大幅下降。然而，关于菠菜抽薹机制中涉及的信号通路和分子功能，我们所知甚少。菠菜从营养生长向生殖阶段转变的遗传信息，对于调控抽薹时间和培育抗性品种以尽量减少性能损失具有重要意义。
为了研究控制菠菜抽薹的关键基因及其遗传网络，我们在营养生长和生殖阶段对早抽薹品种喀什和晚抽薹品种维罗弗莱进行了RNA测序分析，发现在不同比较中有大量差异表达基因（DEG），范围从195到1230个。这些基因主要与春化、光周期/生物钟、赤霉素、自主和衰老途径的信号通路相关。基因本体分析揭示了与碳水化合物代谢相关的术语，对果糖-1,6-二磷酸醛缩酶、海藻糖-6-磷酸合酶1、促花因子1、早花、巨大胚珠和MADS-box蛋白等基因表达模式的详细分析，揭示了它们在启动或延迟抽薹中的潜在作用。
本研究是基于转录组测序鉴定菠菜抽薹和开花相关基因的首次报道，为抽薹控制提供了见解，可用于分子育种计划以及进一步研究其他蔬菜作物中与抽薹相关的遗传机制调控。
