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The SUPERMAN gene family in Populus: nucleotide diversity and gene expression in a dioecious plant

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Abstract

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SUP gene family expression and regulation patterns reported in dioecious woody plant. Phylogenetic and nucleotide diversity analysis indicated PtoSUP1 is highly conserved and has undergone strong purifying selection.

Abstract

The molecular basis of SUPERMAN (SUP) regulation during floral development in monoecious plants has been extensively studied, but little is known of the SUP gene family in dioecious woody plants. In this study, we systematically examined the diversification of the SUP gene family in Populus, integrating genomic organization, expression, and phylogeny data. SUP family members showed sex-specific expression throughout flower development. Transcript profiling of rare gynomonoecious poplar flowers revealed that a significant reduction in PtoSUP1 mRNA might be important for stamen development in gynomonoecious poplar flowers. We found that the coding regions of Populus SUP genes are very highly conserved and that synonymous sites in exon regions have undergone strong purifying selection during SUP evolution in Populus. These results indicate that SUP genes play an important role in floral development of dioecious plants. Expression analysis of SUP suggested possible regulatory mechanisms for gynomonoecious poplar flower development. These findings provide an important insight into the mechanisms of the evolution of SUP function and may help enable engineered regulation of flower development for breeding improved tree varieties.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the following sources: Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities (No. TD2012-01), Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30872042, 31170622).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, No. 35, Qinghua East Road, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Yuepeng Song, Kaifeng Ma, Dong Ci, Xueyuan Tian, Zhiyi Zhang & Deqiang Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory of Genetics and Breeding in Forest Trees and Ornamental Plants, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, No. 35, Qinghua East Road, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Yuepeng Song, Kaifeng Ma, Dong Ci, Xueyuan Tian, Zhiyi Zhang & Deqiang Zhang

Authors
  1. Yuepeng Song
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  2. Kaifeng Ma
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  3. Dong Ci
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  4. Xueyuan Tian
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  5. Zhiyi Zhang
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  6. Deqiang Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Deqiang Zhang.

Additional information

Communicated by C. Quiros.

Z. Zhang: Deceased.

Sequence data from this article have been deposited with the GenBank Data Library under the accession nos. KC831753-KC831763 (PuiSUP1, PtbSUP1, PlaSUP1, PeuSUP1a, PeuSUP1b, PcaSUP1, PusSUP1, PdaSUP1, PagSUP1, PtoSUP1a, PtoSUP1b).

Electronic supplementary material

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Table S1 RT-PCR primer information. (DOC 36 kb)

299_2013_1442_MOESM2_ESM.doc

Table S2 Coding region nucleotide and amino acid sequence comparisons (% similarity) in pairwise comparisons between plant SUP genes. (DOC 38 kb)

Table S3 Effective number of codons (ENC) and GC3s for 100 P. tomentosa genes. (DOC 151 kb)

Table S4 Sequence motifs within the PtoSUP1 and PtoSUP2 functional promoter regions. (DOC 51 kb)

299_2013_1442_MOESM5_ESM.doc

Figure S1 Chromosomal location of PtoSUP1 and PtoSUP2. PtoSUP1 and PtoSUP2 mapped to the linkage groups X and VIII. Segmental duplicated homeologous blocks are indicated in green. Scale represents a 1 Mb chromosomal distance. (DOC 31 kb)

299_2013_1442_MOESM6_ESM.doc

Figure S2 Alignment of deduced PtoSUP1 and AtSUP proteins. Identical amino acid residues are shaded. Zinc-finger and Leu zipper (LZ)–like domains are indicated. Asterisks indicate conserved Leu–isoleucine residues in the Leu zipper–like motif. An EAR-like motif is boxed. (DOC 127 kb)

299_2013_1442_MOESM7_ESM.doc

Figure S3 Promoter analysis of PtoSUP1 and PtoSUP2. The putative transcriptional start site is marked with an upward filled triangle. The 5′ untranslated region (5′UTR) is underlined with bold black line. Putative cis-acting elements are underlined. (DOC 168 kb)

299_2013_1442_MOESM8_ESM.doc

Figure S4 Phytohormone contents at different stages of floral bud development in poplar. Error bars represent SE. Stage1: primordial formation. 2: organogenesis. 3-4: enlargement. 5-6: archespore formation. 7-8: dormancy. 9: pollination/fertilization. Asterisks represent significantly different gene expression between the sexes (‘*’represents P value < 0.05; ‘**’ represents P value < 0.01). (DOC 25 kb)

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Song, Y., Ma, K., Ci, D. et al. The SUPERMAN gene family in Populus: nucleotide diversity and gene expression in a dioecious plant. Plant Cell Rep 32, 1277–1288 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-013-1442-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-013-1442-1

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