Characterization and expression analysis of genes during leaf and corolla senescence of plants.

UNLABELLED

Several families of transcription factors (TFs) control the progression of senescence. Many key TFs belonging to the WRKY family have been described to play crucial roles in the regulation of leaf senescence, mainly in . However, little is known about senescence-associated WRKY members in floricultural species. Delay of senescence in leaves and petals of a worldwide ornamental crop are highly appreciated traits. In this work, starting from 28 differentially expressed genes of during the progression of leaf senescence, we identified the orthologous in and explored the expression profiles of 20 genes during the progression of natural (age-related) leaf and corolla senescence as well as in the corollas of flowers undergoing pollination-induced senescence. Simultaneous visualization showed consistent and similar expression profiles of during natural leaf and corolla senescence, although weak expression changes were observed during pollination-induced senescence. Comparable expression trends between and the corresponding genes of were observed during leaf senescence, although more divergence was found in petals of pollinated petunia flowers. Integration of expression data with phylogenetics, conserved motif and -regulatory element analyses were used to establish a list of candidates that could regulate more than one senescence process. Our results suggest that several members of the WRKY family of TFs are tightly linked to the regulation of senescence in

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-022-01243-y.