Litsea cubeba Raw sequence reads. Litsea cubeba

Litsea cubeba (Lour.) Pers., a popular essential oil crop, is a dioecious species with degenerative sexual organs in both male and female individuals. Yet, the mechanism of degenerative organs development in male and female flowers is poorly understood. Here, we analyzed the morphological characters of degenerative organ development by morphological and histological observations, and determined the critical stage of abortion that occurs at pre-meiosis in male and female flowers. We also conducted RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to understand the genetic basis of stamen abortion in female flowers. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified during the staminode development in female flowers; functional enrichment analysis revealed some important biological pathways involved the regulation of stamen abortion, including plant hormone signal transduction, phenylalanine metabolism, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and flavonoid biosynthesis. Furthermore, 20 DEGs involved in the hormone pathways were found to regulate stamen development.