RNA-seq-mediated transcriptome analysis of actively growing and winter dormant shoots identifies non-deciduous habit of evergreen tree tea during winters

Abstract

Tea [Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze] is a perennial tree which undergoes winter dormancy and unlike deciduous trees, the species does not shed its leaves during winters. The present work dissected the molecular processes operating in the leaves during the period of active growth and winter dormancy through transcriptome analysis to understand a long-standing question: why should tea be a non-deciduous species? Analyses of 24,700 unigenes obtained from 57,767 primarily assembled transcripts showed (i) operation of mechanisms of winter tolerance, (ii) down-regulation of genes involved in growth, development, protein synthesis and cell division, and (iii) inhibition of leaf abscission due to modulation of senescence related processes during winter dormancy in tea. These senescence related processes exhibited modulation to favour leaf abscission (i) in deciduous Populus tremula during winters, and (ii) also in tea but under osmotic stress during which leaves also abscise. These results validated the relevance of the identified senescence related processes for leaf abscission and suggested their operation when in need in tea.

Gene expression analysis of bud and leaf color in tea

“…Recently, RNA-Seq method of high-throughput sequencing technology has been widely used to explore the potential mechanisms associated with important traits in C. sinensis (Paul et al, 2014;Li et al, 2015;Shi et al, 2015;Tai et al, 2015;Wei et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2016;Wu et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2016). This method allows a comparison of the whole transcriptome of samples with large difference in certain trait or under treatments.…”

Computational Analysis of “-omics” Data to Identify Transcription Factors Regulating Secondary Metabolism in Rauvolfia serpentina

“…In order to determine congruity of putative TFs and associated transcripts, expression profiles among eight different tissues were used to compute PCC. This number of samples is sufficient to carry out co-expression analysis as evident from various studies to identify new candidate genes (GongoraCastillo et al 2012;Paul et al 2014;Schluttenhofer et al 2014). PCC is used to construct a correlation matrix of gene expression from which weighted co-expression network is generated (Eisen et al 1998).…”

An A20/AN1-zinc-finger domain containing protein gene in tea is differentially expressed during winter dormancy and in response to abiotic stress and plant growth regulators

“…A subtracted cDNA librarybased approach and RNA-sequencing on next generation sequencing (NGS) platform (Paul et al, 2014) were used to decipher the phenomenon. Analyses of unigenes obtained showed the operation of mechanisms of winter tolerance, and downregulation of genes involved in growth, development, protein synthesis and cell division Paul et al, 2014).…”

“…A subtracted cDNA librarybased approach and RNA-sequencing on next generation sequencing (NGS) platform (Paul et al, 2014) were used to decipher the phenomenon. Analyses of unigenes obtained showed the operation of mechanisms of winter tolerance, and downregulation of genes involved in growth, development, protein synthesis and cell division Paul et al, 2014). Also, the data explained the evergreen nature of the tea tree wherein inhibition of leaf abscission due to modulation of senescence related processes during WD in tea played a decisive role (Paul et al, 2014).…”