Variations in the petal color of Brassica napus are crucial for ornamental value, but the controlled loci for breeding remain to be unraveled. Here, we report a candidate locus, AGR-FC.C3, having conducted a bulked segregant analysis on a segregating population with different petal colors. Our results showed that the locus covers 9.46 Mb of the genome, harboring 951 genes. BnaC03.MYB4, BnaC03.MYB85, BnaC03.MYB73, BnaC03.MYB98, and BnaC03.MYB102 belonging to MYB TFs families that might regulate the petal color were observed. Next, a bulk RNA sequencing of white and orange-yellow petals on three development stages was performed to further identify the possible governed genes. The results revealed a total of 51 genes by overlapping the transcriptome data and the bulked segregant analysis data, and it was found that the expression of BnaC03.CCD4 was significantly up-regulated in the white petals at three development stages. Then, several novel candidate genes such as BnaC03.ENDO3, BnaC03.T22F8.180, BnaC03.F15C21.8, BnaC03.Q8GSI6, BnaC03.LSD1, BnaC03.MAP1Da, BnaC03.MAP1Db, and BnaC03G0739700ZS putative to controlling the petal color were identified through deeper analysis. Furthermo re, we have developed two molecular markers for the reported functional gene BnaC03.CCD4 to discriminate the white and orange-yellow petal colors. Our results provided a novel locus for breeding rapeseed with multi-color petals.
Keywords: bulked segregant analysis; carotenoid; differentially expressed genes; petal color.