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Morphogenesis and global analysis of transcriptional profiles of Celastrus orbiculatus aril: unravelling potential genes related to aril development

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Abstract

As a specialized seed appendage, the aril is a noteworthy and taxonomically important feature of Celastrus orbiculatus; the aril also has important ornamental value and biological functions. To better understand the mechanism of aril development, paraffin sections were used to examine its morphogenesis, and RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) technology was employed for transcriptional profiling of the developing aril. Our results revealed that the aril of C. orbiculatus was formed by the cells of the exostomal region of the outer integument. By analyzing global changes in the transcriptome, 41,560,806, 42,789,340, and 44,496,748 clean reads from three cDNA libraries were generated and assembled into 87,600 unigenes with N50 of 1328 bp, in which 31,971 (36.49%) were annotated to Nr database. Furthermore, a total of 25,914 (29.79%), 14,394 (16.4%) and 11,957 (13.65%) genes were successfully annotated with hierarchical 48 GO terms, 26 KOGs and 32 KEGG pathways. Totally, 104, 1887 and 1967 differently expressed genes were identified in CO-F2 versus CO-F3, CO-F2 versus CO-YF1 and CO-F3 versus CO-YF1, respectively. GO and KEGG pathway analyses of DEGs involved in cell–cell communication and plant hormone signal transduction contributed to aril development were identified. Furthermore, we found putative key target genes of WRKY, Aux/IAA, ARF and MADS-box family’s transcription factors related to aril development. Real-time qPCR was performed on eight genes randomly selected from important transcription factors to validate the expression profiles obtained by RNA-seq. This work provides a platform for future genetic and functional genomics research on the molecular mechanisms of aril structure, and expands our understanding of the molecular mechanism and evolutionary analysis of aril development in other members of the Celastraceae.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31370213) and Beijing Natural Science Foundation (5133036). The authors thank Wenkai Hui for technical assistance, as well as Ruohan Wang and Jun Niu for critical reading of the manuscript.

Author contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KZ, SD, ZZ, LZ. Performed the experiments: KZ, JL, YZ, SX. Analyzed the data: KZ, SD, LZ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KZ, SD, YZ. Wrote the paper: KZ, LZ.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lab of Systematic Evolution and Biogeography of Woody Plants, College of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Kuiling Zu, Jianxia Li, Shubin Dong, Shenjian Xu, Zhixiang Zhang & Liangcheng Zhao

  2. College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Yunyu Zhao

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  1. Kuiling Zu
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Correspondence to Liangcheng Zhao.

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Kuiling Zu declares that he/she has no conflict of interest. Jianxia Li declares that he/she has no conflict of interest. Shubin Dong declares that he/she has no conflict of interest. Yunyu Zhao declares that he/she has no conflict of interest. Shenjian Xu declares that he/she has no conflict of interest. Zhixiang Zhang declares that he/she has no conflict of interest. Liangcheng Zhao declares that he/she has no conflict of interest.

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All raw sequences data in this manuscript will be made publicly available through the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and can be accessed in the Short Read Archive (SRA).

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Zu, K., Li, J., Dong, S. et al. Morphogenesis and global analysis of transcriptional profiles of Celastrus orbiculatus aril: unravelling potential genes related to aril development. Genes Genom 39, 623–635 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-017-0528-5

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