Rhaphiolepis bibas Transcriptome or Gene expression

Flowering is an important part of the plant's life cycle, and it is essential for plant survival and crop production. Most woody fruit trees such as apples and pears bloom in spring, but loquat blooms in autumn and winter. Gibberellin (GA) plays a key role in the regulation of plant flower formation. In this study, after spraying loquat plants with the exogenous hormone GA3, the plants were in vigorous vegetative growth and could not form flowers. Then, a comprehensive analysis of RNA-seq was performed on the materials of the GA3 treatment group and the control group to understand the molecular mechanism of loquat flower formation regulation. Through RNA-seq analysis, in the buds and leaves at different stages after GA3 treatment, 111 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 563 DEGs were down-regulated, and 151 DEGs and 506 DEGs were up-regulated, respectively. In addition, in the DELLA-mediated GA signal pathway, the identified DEGs may be involved in the positive regulation of flower development are: EjWRKY75 (Eri011414), EjFT (Eri036481), EjSOC1 (Eri012338, Eri023104), EjAGL24 (Eri026753), EjSPL (Eri001949, Eri003494), EjLFY (Eri007397, Eri022269), EjFUL (Eri009416, Eri033768), EjAP1 (Eri000407, Eri030184); candidate genes that may be involved in negative regulation of flower development are: EjDELLA (Eri016831, Eri029753, Eri030473, Eri031405, Eri038200, Eri038624), EjMYC3 (Eri010051, Eri034229), EjWRKY12 (Eri034804), EjWRKY13 (Eri012544, Eri035). Finally, by analyzing the co-expression of DEGs and key floral genes EjSOC1s, EjLFYs, EjFULs, EjAP1s, 330 candidate genes that may be involved in the regulation of loquat flowering were screened. These genes belong to 74 gene families, including Cyclin_C, Histone, Kinesin, Lipase_GDSL, MYB, P450, Pkinase, Tubulin, ZF-HD_dimer gene family. These findings will provide new insights into the regulation mechanism of loquat flowering.