Transcriptome Profile Analysis from Different Sex Types of Ginkgo biloba L.

Abstract

In plants, sex determination is a comprehensive process of correlated events, which involves genes that are differentially and/or specifically expressed in distinct developmental phases. Exploring gene expression profiles from different sex types will contribute to fully understanding sex determination in plants. In this study, we conducted RNA-sequencing of female and male buds (FB and MB) as well as ovulate strobilus and staminate strobilus (OS and SS) of Ginkgo biloba to gain insights into the genes potentially related to sex determination in this species. Approximately 60 Gb of clean reads were obtained from eight cDNA libraries. De novo assembly of the clean reads generated 108,307 unigenes with an average length of 796 bp. Among these unigenes, 51,953 (47.97%) had at least one significant match with a gene sequence in the public databases searched. A total of 4709 and 9802 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in MB vs. FB and SS vs. OS, respectively. Genes involved in plant hormone signal and transduction as well as those encoding DNA methyltransferase were found to be differentially expressed between different sex types. Their potential roles in sex determination of G. biloba were discussed. Pistil-related genes were expressed in male buds while anther-specific genes were identified in female buds, suggesting that dioecism in G. biloba was resulted from the selective arrest of reproductive primordia. High correlation of expression level was found between the RNA-Seq and quantitative real-time PCR results. The transcriptome resources that we generated allowed us to characterize gene expression profiles and examine differential expression profiles, which provided foundations for identifying functional genes associated with sex determination in G. biloba.

PacBio Long-Read Sequencing Reveals the Transcriptomic Complexity and Aux/IAA Gene Evolution in Gnetum (Gnetales)

“…Besides, the annotated genes were enriched in the top ten GO enrichment categories ( Figure 3C). Our results are congruent with that eight categories i.e., "metabolic process", "cellular process", "response to stimulus", "catalytic activity", "binding", "cell part", "cell" and "organelle" are all densely enriched in the transcripts of female reproductive organs in Gingko [81] and conifers [82]. These results provide useful information to infer the conservative functional genes in regulating the development of female strobili in gymnosperms.…”

Comprehensive transcriptome analysis and flavonoid profiling of Ginkgo leaves reveals flavonoid content alterations in day–night cycles

“…In our research, 80,765 unigenes were identified, and 50,981 unigenes were annotated in at least one database, which accounted for 63.12% of the total unigenes. The number of unigenes identified was more than twice that of some previous studies [ 38 , 40 ], but less than a previous study [ 39 ]. Because these studies utilized different plant tissues, the quality of the sequence data cannot be judged simply by the number of identified unigenes.…”

“…Recently, with the development of next-generation sequencing technology, a number of transcriptome analyses in Ginkgo have been published [ 38 , 39 , 40 ]. However, these focused on the transcriptomes of sterile seedlings [ 40 ], kernels [ 38 ], and different sexual types [ 39 ] of Ginkgo. The transcriptome of the mature Ginkgo leaf, which is the most important organ for pharmaceutical industries, was not investigated.…”

Cell Wall Bulking by Maleic Anhydride for Wood Durability Improvement

“…One is to block the cell lumen to make it difficult for water to effectively defuse into the cell wall, so as to improve the dimensional stability and decay resistance of wood. The explored modification methods include filling wood cell lumen by physical or chemical means, such as physical filling with poly (glycidyl methacrylate) [27] or phenolic resin [28], physical or chemical filling with polyacrylic resin [29][30][31], or physical or chemical filling with inorganic silica compounds [32]. However, this strategy implies the use of large amounts of filler, resulting in high cost.…”