[Transcriptome profiling of high oleic peanut under low temperatureduring germination]

High oleic (HO) peanut (Arachishypogaea L.) oils benefit human health and industrial production due to its superior nutritional composition and thermo-oxidative stability. However, HO peanut is sensitive to cold stress especially during germination, which limits its distribution in low temperature areas. To understand the molecular mechanism of cold responses in HO peanuts at germination stage, four HO peanut varieties with different cold tolerance were selected in field experiments to analyze their genome-wide gene regulation under low temperatures. High-throughput sequencing and transcriptome analysis revealed a total of 139 429 unigenes. Among these, 3520 common differentially expressed genes (DEG) were detected between two groups of cold-tolerant and cold-sensitive peanuts, and the number of up-regulated genes was greater than that of down-regulated genes in the cold-tolerant peanuts. Gene ontology analysis indicates that the number of DEGs involved in cell membrane metabolism and integrity as well as proteins located in the cell periphery were significantly higher in the cold-tolerant peanuts. KEGG pathway analysis suggests that plant-pathogen interaction and plant hormone signal transduction pathway play important roles in cold tolerance. Four cold-induced genes, TIC(TIME FOR COFFEE), ATX3(histone-lysine N-methyltransferase ATX3-like), AGO4(argonaute 4-like), FER(FERONIA-like receptor protein kinase), and three transcription factor genes, bHLH(bHLH49-like transcription factor), MYB(MYB-related protein 3R-1-like)and EREB(Ethylene-responsive element binding factor 6)were selected to verify the expression profile via real-time quantitative PCR detection. The expression of TIC, ATX3, AGO4, bHLH, MYB and EREB significantly increased within 3 hours after low temperature stress, while the expression of FER significantlyincreased after 12 hours, suggesting that these genes responded to low temperature stress during peanut germination. This work not only sheds light on the transcriptional regulation of HO peanut under low-temperature stress during germination but also provides data resources for screening candidate genes in improving peanuts stress resistance.