Open Access

ARTICLE

Comparative Transcriptome Analysis of Seed Germination of a Cotton Variety with High Tolerance to Low Temperature

Genhai Hu^1,*, Maoni Chao¹, Xiuren Zhou², Yuanzhi Fu²

1 College of Agriculture, Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, 453003, China
2 College of Life Sciences, Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, 453003, China

* Corresponding Author: Genhai Hu. Email:

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2023, 92(9), 2535-2554. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2023.030163

Received 24 February 2023; Accepted 15 May 2023; Issue published 28 July 2023

Abstract

Gossypium hirsutum L. is an important cash crop native to the subtropics and is widely cultivated around the world. Low temperature is an important stress that seriously affects seed germination and emergence during planting. In this study, transcriptomic profiles of low-temperature- and normal-temperature-germinated seeds of Xinluzao 25, a variety with low-temperature tolerance and high germination rates, were analyzed and compared. The following results were obtained. (1) A total of 81.06 Gb of clean data were obtained after transcriptome sequencing and assembly, and 76,931 non-redundant Unigene sequences were obtained after data consolidation and concatenation; of these, 69,883 Unigene sequences were annotated. In addition, 55,463 Unigene transcript sequences (72.2%) were annotated for Gene Ontology (GO) classification, and 26,629 genes were involved in 50 metabolic pathways identified by Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis. (2) Three main pathways related to low-temperature tolerance of seed germination were identified: starch and sucrose metabolism, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, and cysteine and methionine metabolism. Their main molecular functions involve the regulation of abscisic acid and activities of enzymes such as amylase, peroxidase, and oxidoreductase. During germination at low temperature, more genes were down-regulated than up-regulated genes at the protrusion stage (2 mm), and more genes were up-regulated than down-regulated at the germination stage (30 mm) after protrusion. (3) The enzyme activities at the two stages showed that amylase, peroxidase, catalase, and glutathione reductase had higher activities when the seeds germinated at 15°C. In this study, high expression of amylase, peroxidase, catalase, and glutathione reductase genes may be the main cause of increased tolerance to low temperature.

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Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material File

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