Integrative Metabolome and Transcriptome Analyses Reveal the Molecular Mechanism of Yellow-Red Bicolor Formation in Kalanchoe blossfeldiana Petals

Abstract

The winter pot kalanchoe (Kalanchoe blossfeldiana) is an ornamental plant with succulent leaves and clustered flowers in Crassulaceae, widely used as a potted flower or garden decoration. In nature, the bicolor petal is an interesting phenomenon, and breeders have succeeded in cultivating the winter pot kalanchoe with bicolored petals. However, its potential molecular mechanism of pigmentation is poorly understood. This study collected a yellow-red colored winter pot kalanchoe to investigate the molecular mechanism underlying its bicolor formation using the integrative analyses of metabolome and transcriptome. The metabolome results showed that both flavonoid and carotenoid co-existed in the winter pot kalanchoe petals, whereas only anthocyanin accumulation showed significant differences—about nineteen times higher in the red region than that in the yellow region. The differentially expressed genes were significantly enriched in the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway, and the expression level of biosynthetic genes, including KbCHS, KbCHI, KbF3H, KbDFR, KbANS and KbGTs, were significantly upregulated in the red region. Moreover, transcription factors potentially regulating anthocyanin biosynthesis were predicted, and KbMYB2 and KbbHLH1 might play important roles in positively regulating anthocyanin biosynthesis in the red region. The findings reported here provide new insights into the understanding of petal bicolor formation mechanisms and will assist cultivar innovation in winter pot kalanchoe.

Targeted Metabolome and Transcriptome Analyses Reveal the Molecular Mechanism of Color Variation between Sepals and Petals in Fuchsia hybrida

“…Then, 1% agarose gel electrophoresis, a Qubit 4.0 flurometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Woodlands, Singapore) and a QSEP400 highthroughput biofragment analyzer (BiOptic Inc., New Taipei City, Chinese Taiwan) were used for the RNA quantification and qualification. A total of 1 µg RNA was used to generate sequencing libraries similar to the previous publication [28]. Illumina Novaseq6000 System was conducted for sequencing, followed by the transcriptome assembly using Trinity and annotation based on the Nr, SwissProt, TrEMBL, KEGG, GO, KOG and Pfam databases.…”