BackgroundNε-Acetylation of lysine residues, a frequently occurring post-translational modification, plays important functions in regulating physiology and metabolism. However, the information of global overview of protein acetylome under nitrogen-starvation/resupply in tea (Camellia sinensis) leaves was limited. And the full function of lysine acetylated proteins of tea plants in nitrogen absorption and assimilation remains unclear.ResultsHere, we performed the global review of lysine acetylome in tea leaves under nitrogen (N)-starvation/resupply, using peptide prefractionation, immunoaffinity enrichment, and coupling with high sensitive LC-MS/MS combined with affinity purification analysis. Altogether, 2229 lysine acetylation sites on 1286 proteins were identified, of which 16 conserved motifs in E*KacK, Kac*K, Kac*R, Kac*HK, Kac*N, Kac*S, Kac*T, Kac*D, were extracted from 2180 acetylated peptides. Approximately, 36.76% of the acetylated lysines were located in the regions of ordered secondary structures. The most of the identified lysine acetylation proteins were located in the chloroplast (39%) and cytoplasm (29%). The largest group of acetylated proteins consisted of many enzymes, such as ATP synthase, ribosomal proteins and malate dehydrogenase [NADP], which were related to metabolism (38%) in the biological process. These acetylated proteins were mainly enriched in three primary protein complexes of photosynthesis: photosystem I, photosystem II and the cytochrome b6/f complex. And some acetylated proteins related to glycolysis and secondary metabolite biosynthesis were increased/decreased under N-resupply. Moreover, the PPI (protein-protein interaction) analysis revealed that the diverse interactions of identified acetylated proteins mainly involved in photosynthesis and ribosome.ConclusionThe results suggested that lysine acetylated proteins might play regulating roles in metabolic process in tea leaves. The critical regulatory roles mainly involved in diverse aspects of metabolic processes, especially in photosynthesis, glycolysis and secondary metabolism. A lot of proteins related to the photosynthesis and glycolysis were found to be acetylated, including LHCA1, LHCA3, LHCB6, psaE, psaD, psaN, GAPDH, PEPC, ENL and petC. And some proteins related to flavonoids were also found to be acetylated, including PAL, DFR, naringenin 3-dioxygenase and CHI. The provided data may serve as important resources for exploring the physiological, biochemical, and genetic role of lysine acetylation in tea plants. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD008931.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-018-5250-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The identification and evaluation of tea [Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze] germplasm resources are of great significance for tea plant breeding. In recent years, various methods, such as morphology, biochemistry, molecular markers, and sensory evaluation, have been used to evaluate the tea germplasm resources. However, the evaluation of tea germplasms based on metabolomics is rarely reported. In this study, we first measured the main agronomic characters and biochemical components of tea young shoots in spring, and then analyzed the metabolic profiles using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The results indicate that tea germplasm accessions QN3 and QN38 had excellent agronomic traits with early germination and high yield compared with HM. The biosynthesis of flavonoids in young shoots of QN3 was more vigorous, especially for the biosynthesis of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and epicatechin gallate (ECG). Accession QN3 had highest content of luteoloside, myricetin and rutin, whereas QN38 had highest content of most amino acids. On the basis of sensory quality evaluation, accession QN3 and QN38 all had higher total quality scores. By using these approaches, we found that QN3 and QN38 are excellent breeding materials with high yield and high quality for making green teas. We also believe that the evaluation system constructed by the approaches described here is suitable for the identification of tea germplasms.

Sucrose (Suc) and gibberellin (GA) can promote the elongation of certain internodes in bamboo. However, there is a lack of field studies to support these findings and no evidence concerning how Suc and GA promote the plant height of bamboo by regulating the internode elongation and number. We investigated the plant height, the length of each internode, and the total number of internodes of Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) under exogenous Suc, GA, and control group (CTRL) treatments in the field and analyzed how Suc and GA affected the height of Moso bamboo by promoting the internode length and number. The lengths of the 10th–50th internodes were significantly increased under the exogenous Suc and GA treatments, and the number of internodes was significantly increased by the exogenous Suc treatment. The increased effect of Suc and GA exogenous treatment on the proportion of longer internodes showed a weakening trend near the plant height of 15–16 m compared with the CTRL, suggesting that these exogenous treatments may be more effective in regions where bamboo growth is suboptimal. This study demonstrated that both the exogenous Suc and GA treatments could promote internode elongation of Moso bamboo in the field. The exogenous GA treatment had a stronger effect on internode elongation, and the exogenous Suc treatment had a stronger effect on increasing the internode numbers. The increase in plant height by the exogenous Suc and GA treatments was promoted by the co-elongation of most internodes or the increase in the proportion of longer internodes.

Auxin is important in regulating bamboo growth and development. Naturally grown moso bamboo shoots were treated with auxin, and changes in endogenous hormones were determined by a selective response/multi-response monitoring–targeted metabolomics approach. Gibberellin and cytokinin were significantly upregulated, while auxin inhibitor treatment also resulted in endogenous hormone disruption. Transcriptome sequencing using Oxford Nanopore Technology revealed that the regulation of internode length by auxin is mainly through three pathways at the transcriptional, translational and post-translational levels. The pathways are phytohormone signaling, amino acid synthesis and protein processing, and energy metabolism. The transcription factors that play major regulatory roles include ethylene response factor, WRKY and MYB transcription factor, NAC structural domain protein and basic leucine zipper protein. A gene regulatory network was constructed and screened, and we cloned the core regulatory gene— PheAUX/IAA34. We found that there may be crosstalk between auxin signaling and jasmonic acid signaling, and verified that auxin can co-regulate growth with plant hormones by transgenic and yeast two-hybrid experiments. The results demonstrated that auxin-mediated height regulation in bamboo mainly regulates internode length rather than node numbers. For single internodes, auxin mainly regulates internode elongation by promoting cell elongation. High-quality bamboo internode materials for production can be obtained by auxin treatment, which can provide a reference for bamboo plant height regulation research.

Roots are essential for plant growth and development. Bamboo is a large Poaceae perennial with 1,642 species worldwide. However, little is known about the transcriptional atlas that underpin root cell-type differentiation. Here, we set up a modified protocol for protoplast preparation and reported single-cell transcriptomes of 14,279 filtered single cells derived from the basal root tips of Moso bamboo. We identified four cell types and defined new cell type-specific marker genes for the basal root. We reconstructed the developmental trajectories of the root cap, epidermis, and ground tissues and elucidated critical factors regulating cell fate determination. According to in situ hybridization and pseudotime trajectory analysis, the root cap and epidermis originated from a common initial cell lineage, revealing the particularity of bamboo basal root development. We further identified key regulatory factors for these cells differentiation and indicated divergent root developmental pathways between Moso bamboo and rice. Additionally, PheWOX13a and PheWOX13b ectopically expressed in Arabidopsis inhibited primary root and lateral root growth and regulated the growth and development of root cap, which was different from WOX13 orthologs in Arabidopsis. Taken together, our results offer an important resource for investigating the mechanism of root cell differentiation and root system architecture in perennial woody species of Bambusoideae.