Transcriptomic and metabolomic profiling reveals molecular regulatory network involved in flower development and phenotypic changes in two varieties.

UNLABELLED

Due to the medicinal importance of the flowers of Xianglei type (XL) , it is important to understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie their development. In this study, we elucidated the transcriptomic and metabolomic mechanisms that underlie the flower development mechanism of two varieties. In this study, 3435 common differentially expressed unigenes (DEGs) and 1138 metabolites were identified. These common DEGs were mainly enriched in plant hormone signal transduction pathways. Metabolomic analysis showed that amino acids were the main metabolites of differential accumulation in wild-type (WT) , whereas in XL, they were flavonoids and phenylalanine metabolites. Genes and transcription factors (TFs), such as MYB340, histone deacetylase 1 (), small auxin-up RNA 32 (), auxin response factor 6 (), PIN-LIKES 7 (), and WRKY6, likely drive metabolite accumulation. Plant hormone signals, especially auxin signals, and various TFs induce downstream flower organ recognition genes, resulting in a differentiation of the two varieties in terms of their developmental trajectories. In addition, photoperiodic, autonomous, and plant hormone pathways jointly regulated the corolla opening. , response regulator 9 (), Gibberellin receptor (), and Constans-like 10 () were closely related to the unfolding of the corolla. These findings offer valuable understanding of the flower growth process of and the excellent XL phenotypes at the molecular level.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-024-04019-1.