ALBERT

Description: MYB transcription factors (TFs), as one of the largest gene families in plants, play important roles in multiple biological processes, such as plant growth and development, cell morphology and pattern building, physiological activity metabolism, primary and secondary metabolic reactions, and responses to environmental stresses. The function of MYB TFs in crops has been widely studied, but few studies have been done on medicinal plants. In this review, we summarized the MYB TFs that play important roles in secondary metabolism and emphasized the possible mechanisms underlying how MYB TFs are regulated at the protein, posttranscriptional, and transcriptional levels, as well as how they regulate the downstream target gene networks related to secondary metabolism in plants, especially in medicinal plants.

Description: Reactive oxygen species (ROS) in plants increase dramatically under pathogen attack, and the antioxidant defense system is then triggered to protect the plant against the ROS. Jujube witches’ broom disease (JWB), caused by phytoplasma, is a destructive disease of Chinese jujube. The results of fluorescence-based measurement revealed that ROS were overproduced within jujube leaves after phytoplasma invasion. Furthermore, analysis based on mRNA and metabolite levels revealed that ascorbic acid (AsA) metabolism was strengthened under phytoplasma stress. The high expression of genes involved in the AsA/glutathione (GSH) cycle and thioredoxin (Trx) synthesis in diseased leaves indicated that GSH and Trx actively respond to phytoplasma infection. Moreover, higher activities of enzymatic antioxidants and the upregulated expression of related genes were confirmed in diseased tissues. Both nonenzymatic and enzymatic antioxidants in the host jujube were strongly stimulated to cope with ROS caused by phytoplasma stress. Compared with that in the susceptible variety, the activities of glutathione S-transferase and peroxidase in the resistant variety at the earlier infection stage were higher, indicating that enzymes might be involved in the resistance to phytoplasma. These results highlight the roles of the antioxidant defense system of the host plant in the tolerance to phytoplasma invasion.

Description: Negatively selected genes (NSGs) and positively selected genes (PSGs) are the two types of most nuclear protein-coding genes in organisms. However, the evolutionary rates and characteristics of different types of genes have been rarely understood. In the present study, we investigate the rates of synonymous substitution (Ks) and the rates of non-synonymous substitution (Ka) by comparing the orthologous genes of two sequenced Pyrus species, Pyrus bretschneideri and Pyrus communis. Subsequently, we compared the evolutionary rates, gene structures, and expression profiles during different fruit development between PSGs and NSGs. Compared with the NSGs, the PSGs have fewer exons, shorter gene length, lower synonymous substitution rates and have higher evolutionary rates. Remarkably, gene expression patterns between two Pyrus species fruit indicated functional divergence for most of the orthologous genes derived from a common ancestor, and subfunctionalization for some of them. Overall, the present study shows that PSGs differs from NSGs not only under environmental selective pressure (Ka/Ks), but also in their structural, functional, and evolutionary properties. Additionally, our resulting data provides important insights for the evolution and highlights the diversification of orthologous genes in two Pyrus species.

Description: One of the most important attributes of a genome is genome size, which can to a large extent reflect the evolutionary history and diversity of a plant species. However, studies on genome size diversity within a species are still very limited. This study aims to clarify the variation in genome sizes of Chinese jujube and sour jujube, and to characterize if there exists an association between genome sizes and geographical variation. We measured the genome sizes of 301 cultivars of Chinese jujube and 81 genotypes of sour jujube by flow cytometry. Ten fruit traits, including weight, vertical diameter, horizontal diameter, size, total acids, total sugar, monosaccharide, disaccharide, soluble solids, and ascorbic acid were measured in 243 cultivars of Chinese jujube. The estimated genome sizes of Chinese jujube cultivars ranged from 300.77 Mb to 640.94 Mb, with an average of 408.54 Mb, with the highest number of cultivars (20.93%) falling in the range of 334.787 to 368.804 Mb. The genome size is somewhat different with geographical distribution. The results showed weakly significant positive correlation (p 〈 0.05) between genome size and fruit size, vertical diameter, horizontal diameter, and weight in the Chinese jujube. The estimated sour jujube genome sizes ranged from 346.93 Mb to 489.44 Mb, with the highest number of genotypes (24.69%) falling in the range of 418.185 to 432.436 Mb. The average genome size of sour jujube genotypes is 423.55 Mb, 15 Mb larger than that of Chinese jujube. There exists a high level of variation in genome sizes within both Chinese jujube cultivars and sour jujube genotypes. Genome contraction may have been occurred during the domestication of Chinese jujube. This study is the first large-scale investigation of genome size variation in both Chinese jujube and sour jujube, which has provided useful resources and data for the characterization of genome evolution within a species and during domestication in plants.

Description: Early diagnosis is important to reduce the incidence and mortality rate of diabetes. The feasibility of early diagnosis of diabetes was studied via near-infrared spectra (NIRS) combined with a support vector machine (SVM) and aquaphotomics. Firstly, the NIRS of entire blood samples from the population of healthy, pre-diabetic, and diabetic patients were obtained. The spectral data of the entire spectra in the visible and near-infrared region (400–2,500 nm) were used as the research object of the qualitative analysis. Secondly, several preprocessing steps including multiple scattering correction, variable standardization, and first derivative and second derivative steps were performed and the best pretreatment method was selected. Finally, for the early diagnosis of diabetes, models were established using SVM. The first overtone of water (1,300–1,600 nm) was used as the research object for an aquaphotomics model, and the aquagram of the healthy group, pre-diabetes, and diabetes groups were drawn using 12 water absorption patterns for the early diagnosis of diabetes. The results of SVM showed that the highest accuracy was 97.22% and the specificity and sensitivity were 95.65 and 100%, respectively when the pretreatment method of the first derivative was used, and the best model parameters were c = 18.76 and g = 0.008583.The results of the aquaphotomics model showed clear differences in the 1,400–1,500 nm region, and the number of hydrogen bonds in water species (1,408, 1,416, 1,462, and 1,522 nm) was evidently correlated with the occurrence and development of diabetes. The number of hydrogen bonds was the smallest in the healthy group and the largest in the diabetes group. The suggested reason is that the water matrix of blood changes with the worsening of blood glucose metabolic dysfunction. The number of hydrogen bonds could be used as biomarkers for the early diagnosis of diabetes. The result show that it is effective and feasible to establish an accurate and rapid early diagnosis model of diabetes via NIRS combined with SVM and aquaphotomics.

Description: Fruit lignification is due to lignin deposition in the cell wall during cell development. However, there are few studies on the regulation of cell wall lignification and lignin biosynthesis during fruit pigmentation. In this study, we investigated the regulation of cell wall lignification and lignin biosynthesis during pigmentation of winter jujube. The cellulose content decreased, while the lignin content increased in the winter jujube pericarp during pigmentation. Safranin O-fast green staining showed that the cellulose content was higher in the cell wall of winter jujube prior to pigmentation, whereas the lignin in the cell wall increased after pigmentation. The thickness of the epidermal cells decreased with pericarp pigmentation. A combined metabolomics and transcriptomics analysis showed that guaiacyl-syringyl (G-S) lignin was the main lignin type in the pericarp of winter jujube, and F5H (LOC107424406) and CCR (LOC107420974) were preliminarily identified as the key genes modulating lignin biosynthesis in winter jujube. Seventeen MYB and six NAC transcription factors (TFs) with potential regulation of lignin biosynthesis were screened out based on phylogenetic analysis. Three MYB and two NAC TFs were selected as candidate genes and further studied in detail. Arabidopsis ectopic expression and winter jujube pericarp injection of the candidate genes indicated that the MYB activator (LOC107425254) and the MYB repressor (LOC107415078) control lignin biosynthesis by regulating CCR and F5H, while the NAC (LOC107435239) TF promotes F5H expression and positively regulates lignin biosynthesis. These findings revealed the lignin biosynthetic pathway and associated genes during pigmentation of winter jujube pericarp and provide a basis for further research on lignin regulation.