Project description:Prunus persica (peach) trees carrying the ‘Pillar’ or ‘Broomy’ trait (br) have vertically oriented branches caused by loss of function mutations in a gene called TILLER ANGLE CONTROL 1 (TAC1). TAC1 encodes a protein in the IGT gene family that includes LAZY1 and DEEPER ROOTING 1 (DRO1), which regulat lateral branch and root orientations, respectively. Here, we found that some of the native TAC1 alleles in the hexaploid plum species Prunus domestica, which has a naturally more upright stature, contained a variable length trinucleotide repeat within the same exon 3 region previously found to be disrupted in pillar peach trees. RNAi silencing of TAC1 in plum resulted in trees with severely vertical branch orientations similar to those in pillar peaches but with an even narrower profile. In contrast, PpeTAC1 over-expression in plum led to trees with wider branch angles and more horizontal branch orientations. Pillar peach trees and transgenic plum lines exhibited pleiotropic phenotypes including differences in trunk and branch diameter, stem growth, and twisting branch phenotypes. Expression profiling of pillar peach trees revealed differential expression of numerous genes associated with biotic and abiotic stress, hormone responses, plastids, reactive oxygen, and secondary and cell wall metabolism. Collectively, the data provide important clues for understanding TAC1 function and show that alteration of TAC1 expression may have broad applicability to agricultural and ornamental tree industries.
Project description:In deciduous fruit trees, entrance into dormancy occurs in later summer/fall, concomitantly with the shortening of day length and decrease in temperature. Generally speaking, dormancy can be divided into endodormancy, ecodormancy and paradormancy. In Prunus species flower buds, entrance into the dormant stage occurs when the apical meristem is partially differentiated; during dormancy, flower verticils continue their growth and differentiation. In this work we focused our attention on flower bud development during winter in peach. In order to understand how bud development progress is regulated during winter we integrated cytological epigenetic and chromatin genome wide data with transcriptional outputs to obtained a complete picture of the main regulatory pathways involved in endodormancy.
Project description:The aim of this study was to elucidate the potential use of microarray technology, developed in model species, in related, yet phenotypically distinct, species where few or no information are available. Considering the high degree of sequence conservation within the Rosaceae family and, in particular, among the Prunus species we employed the first available peach oligonucleotide microarray (µPEACH 1.0) for studying the transcrptomic profile during apricot fruit development (Prunus armeniaca L., cv. 'Goldrich'). Fruit material was harvested at three distinct stages, corresponding to immature-green stage (6 weeks before fully-ripe stage), mature-firm-ripe stage (change of peel color, 1 week before fully-ripe stage) and at fully-ripe stage and designated as S1, S2 and S3 stages, respectively. Apricot targets cDNA, when applied the µPEACH1.0, were showing significant hybridization with an average of 43% of spotted targets validating the use of μPEACH1.0 to profile the transcriptome of apricot fruit during development and ripening. Microarray analysis carried out on immature and ripe peach and apricot fruit separately pointed out that 70% of genes differentially expressed was detectable the same pattern of expression in both species. This result indicates that the transcriptome of immature and ripe fruit are quite similar in apricot and peach, but also highlighted the presence of transcript changes specie-specific. When μPEACH1.0 was used to profile apricot developing fruit were identified 400 and 74 genes differetially expressed during the transition from S1 to S2 stage and from S2 to S3 stage, respectively. Intriguingly, a considerable number of auxin action regulators (AUX/IAA) and of genes coding heat shock proteins (hsp) were highly up-regulated at the onset and late of ripening phase, respectively.The comparison between the expression profiles of these apricot genes and their peach hortologues showed a similar pattern for AUX/IAA and quite different for hsps. This result suggests a similar role for AUX/IAA in both species and a more important involvement for hsps in the apricot fruit ripening.
Project description:Peanut is one of the most important cash crops with high quality oil, high protein content, and many other nutritional elements, and grown globally. Cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is allotetraploid with a narrow genetic base, and its genetics and molecular mechanisms controlling the agronomic traits are poorly understood. The array SNP data was used for revaling of key candidate loci and genes associated with important agronomic traits in peanut
Project description:We have sequenced a wild Prunus mume and constructed a reference sequence for this genome. In order to improve quality of gene models, RNA samples of five tissues (bud, leaf, root, stem, fruit) were extracted from the Prunus mume. To investigate tissue specific expression using the reference genome assembly and annotated genes, we extracted RNA samples of different tissues and conducted transcriptome sequencing and DEG analysis. Five RNA pools were created corresponding to different tissues of the Prunus mume.
Project description:MicroRNAs play critical roles in various biological and metabolic processes. The function of miRNAs has been widely studied in model plants such as Arabidopsis and rice. However, the number of identified miRNAs and related miRNA targets in peach (Prunus persica) is limited. To understand further the relationship between miRNAs and their target genes during tissue development in peach, a small RNA library and three degradome libraries were constructed from three tissues for deep sequencing. We identified 117 conserved miRNAs and 186 novel miRNA candidates in peach by deep sequencing and 19 conserved miRNAs and 13 novel miRNAs were further evaluated for their expression by RT-qPCR. The number of gene targets that were identified for 26 conserved miRNA families and 38 novel miRNA candidates, were 172 and 87, respectively. Some of the identified miRNA targets were abundantly represented as conserved miRNA targets in plant. However, some of them were first identified and showed important roles in peach development. Our study provides information concerning the regulatory network of miRNAs in peach and advances our understanding of miRNA functions during tissue development.
Project description:In deciduous fruit trees, entrance into dormancy occurs in later summer/fall, concomitantly with the shortening of day length and decrease in temperature. Generally speaking, dormancy can be divided into endodormancy, ecodormancy and paradormancy. In Prunus species flower buds, entrance into the dormant stage occurs when the apical meristem is partially differentiated; during dormancy, flower verticils continue their growth and differentiation. In this work we focused our attention on flower bud development during winter in peach. In order to understand how bud development progress is regulated during winter we integrated cytological epigenetic and chromatin genome wide data with transcriptional outputs to obtained a complete picture of the main regulatory pathways involved in endodormancy.
Project description:MicroRNAs play critical roles in various biological and metabolic processes. The function of miRNAs has been widely studied in model plants such as Arabidopsis and rice. However, the number of identified miRNAs and related miRNA targets in peach (Prunus persica) is limited. To understand further the relationship between miRNAs and their target genes during tissue development in peach, a small RNA library and three degradome libraries were constructed from three tissues for deep sequencing. We identified 117 conserved miRNAs and 186 novel miRNA candidates in peach by deep sequencing and 19 conserved miRNAs and 13 novel miRNAs were further evaluated for their expression by RT-qPCR. The number of gene targets that were identified for 26 conserved miRNA families and 38 novel miRNA candidates, were 172 and 87, respectively. Some of the identified miRNA targets were abundantly represented as conserved miRNA targets in plant. However, some of them were first identified and showed important roles in peach development. Our study provides information concerning the regulatory network of miRNAs in peach and advances our understanding of miRNA functions during tissue development. To identify more conserved and peach-speciM-oM-,M-^Ac miRNAs and their target genes and to understand further the mechanism of miRNA-regulated target genes during tissue development in peach, a small RNA library and three degradome libraries were constructed from three different tissues for deep sequencing.