Transcriptome analysis of strawberry fruit in response to exogenous arginine

• Published in: Planta Vol. 252; no. 5; p. 82
• Main Authors: Lv, Jinhua, Pang, Qianqian, Chen, Xueqin, Li, Teng, Fang, Jinggui, Lin, Shaoyan, Jia, Haifeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.11.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Abscisic Acid; Acetic acid; Agriculture; Anthocyanins; antioxidant enzymes; Antioxidants; Arginine; Arginine - pharmacology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; color; Coloration; Cultivation; Ecology; ethylene; firmness; Forestry; Fragaria - genetics; Fragaria - metabolism; Fruit - genetics; Fruit - metabolism; Fruit cultivation; Fruits; Gene expression; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant - drug effects; Genes; growth and development; Heat shock proteins; indole acetic acid; Indoleacetic acid; Life Sciences; Metabolites; Original Article; Physiology; Plant Proteins - genetics; Plant Proteins - metabolism; Plant Sciences; Regulatory mechanisms (biology); Ripening; Strawberries; stress tolerance; sugar content; Sweet taste; transcriptome; Transcriptome - drug effects; transcriptomics; Resistance; Postharvest; Arginine; RNA-seq; Fragaria × ananassa
• DOI: 10.1007/s00425-020-03489-w
• ISSN: 0032-0935; 1432-2048

Main conclusion Transcriptome and physiological analysis showed that exogenous arginine can delay the ripening process of postharvest strawberry fruit. Arginine (Arg) plays an important role in the growth and development of plants, but its growth and development regulatory mechanisms in strawberry fruit are unknown. In this study, we found that the content of Arg decreased after the onset of fruit coloration and exogenous Arg inhibited fruit coloration. We comprehensively analyzed the transcriptome of ‘Sweet Charlie’ strawberry fruit with or without Arg treatment and identified a large number of differential genes and metabolites. Based on the transcriptome data, we also found that Arg inhibited ripening, which coincided with changes in several physiological parameters and their corresponding gene transcripts, including firmness, anthocyanin content, sugar content, Arg content, indole-acetic acid (IAA) content, abscisic acid (ABA) content, and ethylene emissions. We also found that Arg induced the expression of heat-shock proteins (HSPs) and antioxidant enzyme genes, which improved strawberry stress resistance. This study elucidated the molecular mechanism by which exogenous Arg delays strawberry fruit ripening, providing some genetic information to help guide the future improvement and cultivation of strawberry.