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Updated: Sep 28, 2025
Obtaining High-Quality Transcriptome Data from Cereal Seeds by a Modified Method for Gene Expression Profiling
Published on: May 21, 2020
Genome-scale transcriptomic insights into the gene co-expression network of seed abortion in triploid Siraitia
Rongchang Wei1, Dongping Tu2, Xiyang Huang3
1Cash Crops Research Institute, Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanning, 530007, China.
Background:
Siraitia grosvenorii (Swingle) C. Jeffrey, also known as Luohanguo or monk fruit, is a famous traditional Chinese medicine ingredient with important medicinal value and broad development prospects. Diploid S. grosvenorii has too many seeds, which will increase the utilization cost of active ingredients. Thus, studying the molecular mechanism of seed abortion in triploid S. grosvenorii, identifying the abortion-related genes, and regulating their expression will be a new direction to obtain seedless S. grosvenorii. Herein, we examined the submicroscopic structure of triploid S. grosvenorii seeds during abortion.
Results:
Upon measuring the endogenous hormone content, we found that abscisic acid (ABA) and trans-zeatin (ZR) levels were significantly downregulated after days 15 and 20 of flowering. RNA sequencing of triploid seeds at different developmental stages was performed to identify key genes regulating abortion in triploid S. grosvenorii seeds. Multiple genes with differential expression between adjacent stages were identified; seven genes were differentially expressed across all stages. Weight gene co-expression network analysis revealed that the enhancement of monoterpene and terpene metabolic processes might lead to seed abortion by reducing the substrate flow to ABA and ZR.
Conclusions:
These findings provide insights into the gene-regulatory network of seed abortion in triploid S. grosvenorii from different perspectives, thereby facilitating the innovation of the breeding technology of S. grosvenorii.
