Temperature and photoperiod changes affect cucumber sex expression by different epigenetic regulations.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) are known for their plasticity in sex expression. DNA methylation status determines gene activity but is susceptible to environmental condition changes. Thus, DNA methylation-based epigenetic regulation may at least partially account for the instability of cucumber sex expression. Do temperature and photoperiod that are the two most important environmental factors have equal effect on cucumber sex expression by similar epigenetic regulation mechanism? To answer this question, we did a two-factor experiment of temperature and photoperiod and generated methylome and transcriptome data from cucumber shoot apices.

Results

The seasonal change in the femaleness of a cucumber core germplasm collection was investigated over five consecutive yea

SUBMITTER: Lai YS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6220452 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature