Transcriptome analysis reveals the regulatory mechanism by which suppresses adventitious shoot formation in apple.

Adventitious shoot (AS) regeneration accelerates plant reproduction and genetic transformation. is involved in many biological processes, but its regulation of AS regeneration has not been reported. Here, we showed that the genotype and CK/IAA ratio of apple leaves were the key factors that affected their capacity for AS formation. Moreover, the expression level of was negatively correlated with the capacity for AS formation. Phenotypic analysis of transgenic plants showed that overexpression of inhibited AS formation. Endogenous hormone analysis demonstrated that the contents of auxin (IAA), cytokinin (CK), and abscisic acid (ABA) were higher in plants than in transgenic plants We used RNA sequencing to examine the transcriptional responses of genes in and transgenic apple plants at different AS stages. We identified 8066 differentially expressed genes and focused our analysis on those involved in the IAA, CK, ABA, and gibberellin (GA) hormone signaling pathways. The expression of genes related to the CK signaling pathway and shoot development was higher in GL-3 than in transgenic plants during the callus and AS emergence stages. However, the expression of was higher in transgenic plants than in GL3 and transgenic plants. Yeast one-hybrid (Y1H) assays, dual-luciferase reporter assays, and ChIP-qPCR showed that MdWOX11 binds to the promoter of , and a dual-luciferase reporter assay showed that MdWOX11 enhanced the promoter activity of We concluded that acts downstream of to control AS formation, and we built a regulatory model of the suppression of AS formation by in apple.