Integration of transcriptome and metabolome reveals key regulatory mechanisms affecting sepal color variation in Aquilegia oxysepala

作者：Yuan Meng, Yun Bai, Dan Chen, Tingting Ma, Wen Si, Yuan Yichao, Lifei Chen, Yunwei Zhou · 发表于：Scientia Horticulturae · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1016/j.scienta.2024.113334 · 被引用次数：9 · 研究领域：Plant and animal studies、Botanical Research and Applications、Plant Diversity and Evolution

Aquilegia oxysepala is a perennial native to northeast China with widespread practical uses and exhibiting dark red sepals. A. oxysepala f. pallidiflora is a natural variant of A. oxysepala with pale yellow sepals. To reveal the regulatory mechanisms involved in sepal color evolution, sepals of two Aquilegia species were subjected to transcriptome and broad-target metabolome analyses. Key regulatory networks were predicted to correlate with the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway, based on co-joint and weighted gene co-expression network analyses. In total of 9000 differentially expressed genes and 1159 metabolites were identified. Using Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis, 15 structural genes and 8 anthocyanins were annotated in the pathways of anthocyanin biosynthesis. Anthocyanins were detected in both A. oxysepala species. Cyanidin and delphinidin glucoside were the main substances that determined sepal color in A. oxysepala, and apigenin glucoside was the main respective compound in A. oxysepala f. pallidiflora. Compared with A. oxysepala, A. oxysepala f. pallidiflora exhibited downregulation of anthocyanin biosynthesis and transport genes. ERF, bHLH, B3, C2H2, HB_PHD, Trihelix, WRKY, MYB, NAC, Whirly, and M-type_MADS played key roles in anthocyanin biosynthesis. This study elucidated the molecular characteristics of color variation in A. oxysepala, providing new insights into adaptive evolution of Aquilegia and a theoretical basis for innovative bre...