Phenotype and transcriptome analysis reveals chloroplast development and pigment biosynthesis together influenced the leaf color formation in mutants of Anthurium andraeanum ‘Sonate’

Abstract

Leaf color is one of the well-sought traits in breeding program for Anthurium andraeanum Lind. Knowledge of mechanisms in anthuriums to produce leaves with different shades of green would help to effectively select desirable traits. In this study, the micro- and ultra-structural and physiological features of leaves on wild type and leaf color mutants (dark green, rubescent, etiolated, albino) in A. andraeanum ‘Sonate’ were analyzed. Results show that chloroplasts of leaf color mutants exhibited abnormal morphology and distribution. Using next generation sequencing technology followed by de novo assembly, leaf transcriptomes comprising of 41,017 unigenes with an average sequence length of 768 bp were produced from wild type and rubescent mutant. From the 27,539 (67.1%) unigenes with annotated functions, 858 significantly differently expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, consisting of 446 up-regulated genes and 412 down-regulated genes. Genes that affect chloroplasts development and division, and chlorophyll biosynthesis were included in the down-regulated DEGs. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis validated that the expression level of those genes was significantly lower in the rubescent, etiolated, and albino mutant compared to wild type plants, which concurs with the differences in micro- and ultra-structures and physiological features between these two types of plants. Conclusively, the leaf color formation is greatly affected by the activity of chloroplast development and pigment biosynthesis. And the possible formation pathway of leaf color mutant of A. andraeanum ‘Sonate’ is deduced based on our results.

Physiological Characterization and Comparative Transcriptome Analysis of White and Green Leaves of Ananas comosus var. bracteatus

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Transcriptome and proteomic analyses reveal multiple differences associated with chloroplast development in the spaceflight-induced wheat albino mutant mta

“…As transcriptome analyses provide information about quantitative changes in gene expression, these data can be used to obtain fundamental insights into specific pathways and genes associated with certain species [13]. In addition, proteomic analysis using approaches such as 2D-DIGE and MALDI-TOF/TOF are helpful in identifying the differences and categories of abundant proteins [26].…”

Transcriptome analysis of colored calla lily (Zantedeschia rehmanniiEngl.) by Illumina sequencing:de novoassembly, annotation and EST-SSR marker development

“…This strategy can enrich the large amounts of expressed sequence data for non-model organisms for which the reference genome or transcriptome is not available (Martin & Wang, 2011). Several non-model organisms in the Araceae family, including Z. aethiopica (Cândido et al, 2014) Arum concinnatum (Onda et al, 2015), Anthurium andraeanum (Tian et al, 2013; Yang et al, 2015; Li et al, 2015), Pinellia ternate (Wang et al, 2014), Amorphophallus konjac and A. bulbifer (Zheng et al, 2013; Diao et al, 2014), have been recently studied by transcriptome sequencing, which has provided a better understanding of these crops. EST-SSR markers have been successfully characterized and developed in P. ternate (Wang et al, 2014), A. konjac and A. bulbifer (Zheng et al, 2013).…”