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A Rapid and Specific Microplate Assay for the Determination of Intra- and Extracellular Ascorbate in Cultured Cells
Published on: April 11, 2014
FaERF71C regulates vitamin C metabolism and antioxidant activity by repressing FaAPX1D during strawberry fruit
Zhiliang Pan1, Jiahui Liang2, Linlin Xu2
1College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210095, China; Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory for Horticultural Crop Genetics and Improvement/ Zhongshan Biological Breeding Laboratory, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210014, China.
Abstract:
The regulatory mechanisms of ascorbate peroxidase (APX) in L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C, Vc) metabolism during strawberry fruit ripening remain poorly understood. In this study, we identified 24 FaAPX genes in the cultivated strawberry genome and found that FaAPX1D, the most highly expressed member during ripening, shows significant positive correlations with both Vc and H2O2 content. Functional analysis revealed that silencing FaAPX1D increased Vc and H2O2 levels, indicating its role in the negative regulation of Vc accumulation. Through transcriptome co-expression analysis, we identified FaERF71C as a transcriptional repressor showing a strong negative correlation with FaAPX1D expression. Molecular experiments (Y1H, Dual-LUC, and ChIP) confirmed that FaERF71C directly binds to the FaAPX1D promoter. Genetic evidence from overexpression and VIGS assays demonstrated that FaERF71C promotes Vc accumulation by repressing FaAPX1D expression. Our work reveals a novel FaERF71C-FaAPX1D regulatory module that modulates Vc levels during strawberry fruit ripening, providing valuable insights for molecular breeding of nutritionally improved fruits.
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