Plants have continually confrontation with different abiotic stresses, including salt, low temperature, drought or hormone stress. The plants acclimate to the environmental stresses relating with the falls of the molecular mesh including the stress signal receiver, signal transcriptional regulation and the expression of functional and structure genes. Using the RNA-seq, we carried out a transcriptional analysis under cold treatment for investigating a profound comprehension of the signal network and molecular metabolisms reaction included in abiotic stress reaction for Lilium lancifolium. Our study identified 18,722 unigenes had demonstrated the resemblance to the known exact proteins in the Swiss-Prot protein database and classified them by Gene ontology into three primary kinds: cellular component, biological process, and molecular function, and then 15,898 unigenes aligned to existing sequences in the KEGG databases. Based on the transcriptome results of cold stress, more stress-related genes were identified and analyzed of their expressions in other abiotic stress treatments as 37 °C, ABA, JA and Na. Meanwhile, bioinformatics qRT-PCR analyses of stress genes as LlDREB1, LlAP2, LlNAC1, LlHOT, LlR2R3-MYB and LlCDPK revealed that novel candidate genes encoding ethylene responsive transporters and serine/threonine receptor-like kinases, which contributed to speculate the signal regulation pathway during the abiotic stresses; engineering genes could also boost the tolerance to stress, as protected and maintained the function and structure of cellular components. Our research conjectured the abiotic stress signal transduction pathway and identified the expected key ingredients regulating the stress tolerance in Lilium lancifolium, which would enable the in-depth molecular exploration of stress-tolerance mechanisms in lily.

Chinese hawthorn (Crataegus pinnatifida) is an important ornamental and economic horticultural plant. However, the lack of molecular markers has limited the development and utilization of hawthorn germplasm resources. Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) derived from expressed sequence tags (ESTs) allow precise and effective cultivar characterization and are routinely used for genetic diversity analysis. Thus, we first reported the development of polymorphic EST-SSR markers in C. pinnatifida with perfect repeats using Illumina RNA-Seq technique. In total, we investigated 14,364 unigenes, from which 5091 EST-SSR loci were mined. Di-nucleotides (2012, 39.52%) were the most abundant SSRs, followed by mono- (1989, 39.07%), and tri-nucleotides (1024, 20.11%). On the basis of these EST-SSRs, a total of 300 primer pairs were designed and used for polymorphism analysis in 70 accessions collected from different geographical regions of China. Of 239 (79.67%) pairs of primer-generated amplification products, 163 (54.33%) pairs of primers showed polymorphism. Finally, 33 primers with high polymorphism were selected for genetic diversity analysis and tested on 70 individuals with low-cost fluorescence-labeled M13 primers using capillary electrophoresis genotyping platform. A total of 108 alleles were amplified by 33 SSR markers, with the number of alleles (Na) ranging from 2 to 14 per locus (mean: 4.939), and the effective number of alleles (Ne) ranging from 1.258 to 3.214 (mean: 2.221). The mean values of gene diversity (He), observed heterozygosity (Ho), and polymorphism information content (PIC) were 0.524 (range 0.205–0.689), 0.709 (range 0.132–1.000), and 0.450 (range 0.184–0.642), respectively. Furthermore, the dendrogram constructed based on the EST-SSR separated the cultivars into two main clusters. In sum, our study was the first comprehensive study on the development and analysis of a large set of SSR markers in hawthorn. The results suggested that the use of NGS techniques for SSR development represented a powerful tool for genetic studies. Additionally, fluorescence-labeled M13 markers proved to be a valuable method for genotyping. All of these EST-SSR markers have agronomic potential and constitute a scientific basis for future studies on the identification, classification, and innovation of hawthorn germplasms.

ABSTRACT. Lily (Lilium spp), which belongs to Lilium, is one kind of monocotyledon. As a perennial ornamental plant with extremely high esthetic, edible, and medicinal value, lily has gained much favor due to its mostly showy flowers of various colors and elegant shape. In this research, we studied experimental materials in a sample of 49 individuals including 40 cultivars, nine species of wild lily, and their variants. The collection of 40 cultivars covered all six hybrids in the genus, i.e., Asiatic hybrids, Oriental hybrids, Longiflorum hybrids, LA hybrids, LO hybrids, and OT hybrids. Genetic diversity and inter-relationships were assessed through analysis of phenotypic characteristics, pollen morphology, and ISSR molecular markers. Quantitative characters were selected to analyze phenotypic variation, with results indicating greater variability in petiole length as compared to other characters. Pollen morphological observations suggested that the largest variation coefficient between all hybrids and wild species was the lumina. ISSR makers demonstrated that both cultivars and wild species possess a high level of genetic diversity. Specifically, the genetic diversity of wild lily was higher than cultivars.

ABSTRACT. The Chinese hawthorn (Crataegus pinnatifida Bge. var. major N.E.Br.) is uniquely originated in northern China. The ecological and horticultural importance of Chinese hawthorn is considerable and some varieties are valued for their fruit or medicine extracts. Its taxonomy and phylogeny remain poorly understood. Apart from general plant morphological traits, pollen is an important trait for the classification of plants and their evolutionary origin. However, few studies have investigated the pollen of Chinese hawthorn. Here, an analysis of plant and pollen morphological characteristics was conducted in 57 cultivars from the Shenyang region. Thirty plant morphological characters and nine pollen grain characters were investigated. The plant morphological analysis revealed that the coefficient of variation for 13 traits was >20%, which indicates a high degree of variability. We also found that the pollen grains varied greatly in size, shape (from prolate to perprolate), and exine pattern (striate-perforate predominantly). The number of apertures was typically three. Based on these findings, we suggest that pollen morphology associated with plant morphological traits can be used for classification and phylogenetic analysis of Chinese hawthorn cultivars. In sum, our results provide new insights and constitute a scientific basis for future studies on the classification and evolution of Chinese hawthorn.