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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Davis, California » Crops Pathology and Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #297070
Title: Transcriptome changes associated wtih delayed flower senescence on transgenic petunia by inducing expression of etr1-1, a mutant ethylene receptor

Author
item WANG, HONG - Jiangsu Academy Agricultural Sciences
item STIER, GENEVIEVE - University Of California
item LIN, JING - Jiangsu Academy Agricultural Sciences
item LIU, GANG - Nanjing Agricultural University
item ZHANG, ZHEN - Nanjing Agricultural University
item CHANG, YOUHONG - Jiangsu Academy Agricultural Sciences
item REID, MICHAEL - University Of California
item Jiang, Cai-Zhong

Submitted to: PLOS ONE
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/26/2013
Publication Date: 7/9/2013
Citation: Wang, H., Stier, G., Lin, J., Liu, G., Zhang, Z., Chang, Y., Reid, M.S., Jiang, C. 2013. Transcriptome changes associated wtih delayed flower senescence on transgenic petunia by inducing expression of etr1-1, a mutant ethylene receptor. PLoS One. 8(7):1-14.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Flowers of ethylene-sensitive ornamental plants transformed with ethylene-insensitive 1-1(etr 1-1), a mutant ethylene receptor first isolated from Arabidopsis, are known to have longer shelf lives. We have generated petunia plants in which the etr 1-1 gene was over-expressed under the control of a chemically-inducible promoter, which would allow expression of etr 1-1 to be initiated at the desired time and stage of development. Here, we showed that transgenic plants grew and developed normally without a chemical inducer. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR demonstrated that the abundance of transcripts of Arabidopsis etr 1-1 gene was substantially induced in flowers with 30 uM dexamethasone (DEX). Consequently, the life of the flowers was almost doubled and the peak of ethylene production was delayed. We compared gene expression changes of petals with DEX to those without DEX at 24 h and 48 h by microarray. Our results indicated that transcripts of many putative genes encoding transcription factors were down-regulated by etr 1-1 induced expression at the early stage. In addition, putative genes involved in gibberellin biosynthesis, response to jasmonic acid/gibberellin stimulus, cell wall modification, ethylene biosynthesis, and cell death were down-regulated associating with etr 1-1 induced expression. We investigated time-course gene expression profiles and found two profiles which displayed totally opposite expression patterns under these two treatments. In these profiles, 'the regulation of transcription' was predominant in GO categories. Taking all results together, we concluded those transcription factors down-regulated at early stage might exert a major role in regulating the senescence process which were consequently characterized by cell wall modification and cell death.