Pericallis cruenta Transcriptome or Gene expression

Polyacylated anthocyanins with multiple glycosyl and aromatic acyl groups tends to make flowers display bright and stable blue color. However, there are few studies on the isolation and functional characterization of genes involved in polyacylated anthocyanin biosynthesis mechanism, which limits the molecular breeding of truly blue flowers. Senecio cruentus is an important potted ornamental plant, and its blue flowers contain 3',7-polyacylated delphinidin-type anthocyanins which was not reported in any other plants, suggesting that it harbors abundant gene resources for the molecular breeding of blue flowers. Based on the second- and third-generation transcriptomes and different gene expression (DEG) analysis, combined with RT- and qRT-PCR, we found two genes encoding uridine diphosphate glycosyltransferase, named as ScUGT1 and ScUGT4, two genes encoding beta-glucosidase, named as ScBGLU11, ScBGLU12, one gene encoding serine carboxypeptidase-like acyltransferase ScSCPL2, and two MYB transcriptional factor genes ScMYB2 and ScMYB4, were specifically highly expressed in the ray florets of VeB, which indicated these genes may be involved in cinerarin biosynthesis. Function of ScSCPL2 was analyzed by leaves of VIGS system in cineraria conbined with HPLC-MS/MS. It showed that ScSCPL2 mainly participated in the 3' and 7 position acylation of cinerarin. These results will provide new insight into the molecular basis of polyacylated anthocyanin biosynthesis mechanism in higher plants and of great significance for blue flower molecular breeding of ornamental plants.