Project description:Zanthoxylum armatum is a prominent plant for food industries. However, its male flowers often occurred in gynogenesis plants, the potential mechanism remains poorly understood. Herein, a total of 26 floral sex differentiation stages were observed to select four vital periods to reveal key factors using RNA-seq, phytohormones and carbohydrates investigation. Male flower was significantly associated with cytokinin and sucrose signals, whereas female flower was initiated by SA, GA1, and ABA pathways. The floral organ identity genes were attributed to ABCDE model. Eleven ZaAP3/PI and four ZaSTK/SHP were exclusively up-regulated in male and female floral development, respectively. 14 DEGs were obtained to regulate the transition from vegetative to reproductive growth. Finally, 21 crucial factors were identified in co-expression network from a total of 83 important members. This study provided new insights to explore the regulatory mechanism of floral sex differentiation, which would be benefited to cultivate high-yield varieties in Z. armatum.
Project description:Zanthoxylum armatum (Z. armatum) is one of the most economical trees with the unique numbing taste. However, the underlying regulation mechanism involved in the numbing-taste remains scarce. Thus, uncovering the vital genes associated with numbing-taste biosythesis pathways is critical for revealing the genetic information and breeding the high-quality Z. armatum germplasms. Here, a de novo transcriptome assembly of the five major organs was performed in Z. armatum, including roots, stems, leaf buds, mature leaves and fruits. A total of 111 318 unigenes were generated with an average of 1 014 bp. Meanwhile, a large number of SSR and SNP/Indel loci were obtained to improve our understanding about the phylogenetic and genetic information in Z. armatum. The organ specific unigenes of five major samples were screened and annotated with GO and KEGG enrichment analysis, respectively. Additionally, 53 and 34 unigenes were exclusively up-regulated in fruit samples, and identified as candidate unigenes for terpenoid biosynthesis process and fatty acid biosynthesis, elongation and degradation pathways, respectively. Moreover, he forty days after fertilization (Fr4 stage) could be a important period to accumulate the terpenoid compounds in the fruit development and maturation process of Z. armatum. The Fr4 stage could be a vital point to promote the first few steps of fatty acid biosynthesis process, and the subsequent reactions could be significantly catalyzed at sixty two days after fertilization (Fr6 stage). The present study conducted the de novo transcriptome assembly of the five major organs in Z. armatum. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first comprehensive analysis to reveal the underlying genes related to the unique numbing taste in Z. armatum. The assembled transcriptome profiles will expand the genetic information and improve our understanding for gene functional studies, which helps in engineering high-quality cultivars of Z. armatum.
