Transcriptome profiling of cold hardiness related genes in peach tree (Prunus persica) shoots

J. Park, D.J. Yu, S. Chea, J.H. Kwon, H.J. Lee
Cold hardiness of peach (Prunus persica) trees varies with cultivar. To search the genes responsible for cultivar differences, we compared the transcriptomes from two peach cultivars showing different cold hardiness by using next generation sequencing. ‘Soomee’ and ‘Kiraranokiwami’ peach trees are known to be relatively cold-tolerant and -susceptible, respectively. The shoots were collected in October and January from field-grown 5-year-old trees of the two cultivars. RNAs from stem tissues were prepared for the transcriptome analysis. Following the transcriptome sequencing, total bases of 4.8-7.1 Gb were obtained and 94-97% of total reads were mapped to the reference peach genome. Totally, 190 and 262 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were found in October and January, respectively, from the two cultivars. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed that most of the DEGs belonged to cell wall macromolecule catabolic process, signal transduction, ADP binding, trehalose biosynthetic process, and integral component of plasma membrane along with several uncharacterized proteins and long non-coding RNAs. The in silico results were validated by performing reverse transcript quantitative polymerase chain reaction against the DEGs showing the significant fold change both in October and January. The present results demonstrate the cultivar difference of peach trees in cold hardiness and at the transcriptome level.
Park, J., Yu, D.J., Chea, S., Kwon, J.H. and Lee, H.J. (2020). Transcriptome profiling of cold hardiness related genes in peach tree (Prunus persica) shoots. Acta Hortic. 1281, 649-654
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2020.1281.85
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2020.1281.85
cold stress, cultivar difference, differentially expressed genes, gene set enrichment analysis, transcriptome analysis
English

Acta Horticulturae