Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Differential Gene Expression and a Possible Role of Gibberellins in a Shade-Tolerant Mutant of Perennial Ryegrass

Wei Li; Lorenzo Katin-Grazzini; Xianbin Gu; Xiaojing Wang; Rania El-Tanbouly; Huseyin Yer; Chandra Thammina; John Inguagiato; Karl Guillard; Richard J McAvoy; Jill Wegrzyn; Tingting Gu; Yi Li

doi:10.3389/fpls.2017.00868

Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Differential Gene Expression and a Possible Role of Gibberellins in a Shade-Tolerant Mutant of Perennial Ryegrass

Front Plant Sci. 2017 May 26:8:868. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2017.00868. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Wei Li¹, Lorenzo Katin-Grazzini¹, Xianbin Gu^{1

2}, Xiaojing Wang², Rania El-Tanbouly^{1

3}, Huseyin Yer¹, Chandra Thammina¹, John Inguagiato¹, Karl Guillard¹, Richard J McAvoy¹, Jill Wegrzyn⁴, Tingting Gu², Yi Li^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, University of Connecticut, StorrsCT, United States.
² College of Horticulture and State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Nanjing Agricultural UniversityNanjing, China.
³ Department of Floriculture, Ornamental, Horticulture and Landscape Gardening, Faculty of Agriculture, Alexandria UniversityAlexandria, Egypt.
⁴ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, StorrsCT, United States.

Abstract

The molecular basis behind shade tolerance in plants is not fully understood. Previously, we have shown that a connection may exist between shade tolerance and dwarfism, however, the mechanism connecting these phenotypes is not well understood. In order to clarify this connection, we analyzed the transcriptome of a previously identified shade-tolerant mutant of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) called shadow-1. shadow-1 mutant plants are dwarf, and are significantly tolerant to shade in a number of environments compared to wild-type controls. In this study, we treated shadow-1 and wild-type plants with 95% shade for 2 weeks and compared the transcriptomes of these shade-treated individuals with both genotypes exposed to full light. We identified 2,200 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (1,096 up-regulated and 1,104 down-regulated) in shadow-1 mutants, compared to wild type, following exposure to shade stress. Of these DEGs, 329 were unique to shadow-1 plants kept under shade and were not found in any other comparisons that we made. We found 2,245 DEGs (1,153 up-regulated and 1,092 down-regulated) in shadow-1 plants, compared to wild-type, under light, with 485 DEGs unique to shadow-1 plants under light. We examined the expression of gibberellin (GA) biosynthesis genes and found that they were down-regulated in shadow-1 plants compared to wild type, notably gibberellin 20 oxidase (GA20ox), which was down-regulated to 3.3% (96.7% reduction) of the wild-type expression level under shade conditions. One GA response gene, lipid transfer protein 3 (LTP3), was also down-regulated to 41.5% in shadow-1 plants under shade conditions when compared to the expression level in the wild type. These data provide valuable insight into a role that GA plays in dwarfism and shade tolerance, as exemplified by shadow-1 plants, and could serve as a guide for plant breeders interested in developing new cultivars with either of these traits.

Keywords: differentially expressed genes; dwarfism; gibberellins; shade tolerance; shadow-1; transcriptome analysis.