Comparative transcriptome analysis of aerial and subterranean pods development provides insights into seed abortion in peanut

Abstract

The peanut is a special plant for its aerial flowering but subterranean fructification. The failure of peg penetration into the soil leads to form aerial pod and finally seed abortion. However, the mechanism of seed abortion during aerial pod development remains obscure. Here, a comparative transcriptome analysis between aerial and subterranean pods at different developmental stages was produced using a customized NimbleGen microarray representing 36,158 unigenes. By comparing 4 consecutive time-points, totally 6,203 differentially expressed genes, 4,732 stage-specific expressed genes and 2,401 specific expressed genes only in aerial or subterranean pods were identified in this study. Functional annotation showed their mainly involvement in biosynthesis, metabolism, transcription regulation, transporting, stress response, photosynthesis, signal transduction, cell division, apoptosis, embryonic development, hormone response and light signaling, etc. Emphasis was focused on hormone response, cell apoptosis, embryonic development and light signaling relative genes. These genes might function as potential candidates to provide insights into seed abortion during aerial pod development. Ten candidate genes were validated by Real-time RT-PCR. Additionally, consistent with up-regulation of auxin response relative genes in aerial pods, endogenous IAA content was also significantly increased by HPLC analysis. This study will further provide new molecular insight that auxin and auxin response genes potentially contribute to peanut seed and pod development.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11103-014-0193-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Transcriptome Analysis of Calcium- and Hormone-Related Gene Expressions during Different Stages of Peanut Pod Development

“…As to fruit development, it has been applied to strawberry (Aharoni and O’Connell, 2002), tomato (Alba et al, 2005), pear (Fonseca et al, 2004), apple (Lee et al, 2007), and peanut seed development (Zhang et al, 2012; Zhu et al, 2014). But the relationship between calcium and peanut seed at different pods developmental stages was seldom mentioned.…”

“…The advent of rapid and high-throughput technology for quantification of the transcriptome (Malone and Oliver, 2011) benefited the peanut genomics research, and was used in the seed development and tissue expression of peanut (Zhang et al, 2012; Chen et al, 2013; Wang et al, 2013; Zhu et al, 2014). These researches make it probability to study the relationship of between calcium and peanut pod development by transcriptome method, and explore valuably candidate genes.…”

Cloning and characterization of SPL-family genes in the peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

“…We found that gynophore GA 4/7 levels significantly decreased after gynophore soil penetration (data not shown). Zhu et al (2014) reported that one to two days of dark treatment significantly decreases the endogenous GA 3 content of gynophores. In the present study, the peanut SPL8 expression level was upregulated in dark-grown S2 (2-fold) and S3 (5-fold) gynophores in comparison with that in S1 gynophores (Figure 6).…”

“…Peanut is an important global oil crop and protein source. Peanut plant flowers and finishes pollination above ground as do other plants, while the ovule-carrying peg (gynophore) starts to form above ground and then grows downwards to bury the fertilized ovule in the soil for pod development (Thompson et al, 1985;Xia et al, 2013;Zhu et al, 2014). In this study, we identified 15 potential peanut SPLs that all contained a conserved SBP domain.…”

Gynophore miRNA analysis at different developmental stages in Arachis duranensis

“…Xia et al (2013) found that a series of transcripts, including endogenous hormones, respond to optical signals, and that morphogenesis and cell division pathway transcripts showed distinct changes before and after the burying of the gynophore. Zhu et al (2014) compared the transcriptome of the gynophore before and after burying, and described the relevance of changes in expression and hormone levels of GA, IAA, and other hormone-related transcripts. Chen et al (2015) detected 11 transcriptomes from different developmental stages of the gynophore, and exhaustively analyzed the transcripts associated with gravitropism and photomorphogenesis.…”