Project description:Bud dormancy is a crucial stage in perennial trees and allows survival over winter and optimal subsequent flowering and fruit production. Environmental conditions, and in particular temperature, have been shown to influence bud dormancy. Recent work highlighted some physiological and molecular events happening during bud dormancy in trees. However, we still lack a global understanding of transcriptional changes happening during bud dormancy. We conducted a fine tune temporal transcriptomic analysis of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) flower buds from bud organogenesis until the end of bud dormancy using next-generation sequencing. We observe that buds in organogenesis, paradormancy, endodormancy and ecodormancy are characterised by distinct transcriptional states, and associated with different pathways. We further identified that endodormancy can be separated in two phases based on its transcriptomic state: early and late endodormancy. We also found that transcriptional profiles of just 7 genes are enough to predict the main cherry tree flower buds dormancy stages. Our results indicate that transcriptional changes happening during dormancy are robust and conserved between different sweet cherry cultivars. Our work also sets the stage for the development of a fast and cost effective diagnostic tool to molecularly define the flower bud stage in cherry trees.
Project description:The experiment was performed in a commercial sweet cherry (cv. Tsolakeika, Prunus avium L.) orchard in North Greece (Edessa) during 2017 growing season. The orchard contained 10-years old trees, planted at 5x5 m spacing between rows and along the row, grafted onto Mahaleb cherry (Prunus mahaleb L.) rootstock, trained in open vase and subjected to standard cultural practices. Three foliar sprays (0.5% or 35 mM CaCl2) were performed at 15, 27 and 37 days after full blossom (DAFB). Cherry fruits (exocarp plus mesocarp tissues) were sampled in two developmental stages, namely at full red color (44 DAFB, S4 stage) and at commercial harvest (55 DAFB, S5 stage). Three biological replicates of 20-fruit sub-lots in control and Ca-treated fruits were frozen in liquid nitrogen, grinding in fine powder and stored at -80 ⁰C for proteomic processing.
Project description:Stamen development is an important developmental process that directly affects the yield of Prunus sibirica. In this study, the male sterile flower buds and male fertile flower buds of Prunus sibirica were used as materials to performed RNA-Seq analyses to compare transcription differences. The results would provide a theoretical basis for further investigation of the formation mechanism of male sterile flower.
Project description:Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae 9644 (Pss9644) is a causal agent of bacterial cherry canker causing necrotic symptoms on leaves, fruits, gummosis and canker in woody tissues of sweet cherry (Prunus avium). To understand which virulent factor genes were expressed in vitro, Pss9644 was grown in rich media (King's B Broth) and minimum media (hrp-inducing minimum media). The latter mimics the in planta environment.
Project description:We explored seasonal gene expression profiles in the Yoshino cherry trees (Cerasus × yedoensis ‘Somei-yoshino’) at three distinct sites, each situated at varying latitudes in Japan. Our goal was to gather molecular phenology data that could provide insights into mechanism of bud dormancy. The molecular phenology approach, which monitors the seasonal dynamics of global gene expression profiles in leaves and buds under natural conditions, enables the study of physiological responses to seasonal environmental changes at the molecular level.
Project description:Six stages of flower and fruit materials from S. lycopersicum var. Moneymaker (MM), S. lycopersicum var. cerasiforme LA1310 (CC) and Solanum pimpinellifolium PI365967 (PP) including 5DPA, 20DPA, mature green, break stage and red ripen fruits and -2DPA flower
Project description:In deciduous fruit trees, entrance into dormancy occurs in later summer/fall, concomitantly with the shortening of day length and decrease in temperature. Generally speaking, dormancy can be divided into endodormancy, ecodormancy and paradormancy. In Prunus species flower buds, entrance into the dormant stage occurs when the apical meristem is partially differentiated; during dormancy, flower verticils continue their growth and differentiation. In this work we focused our attention on flower bud development during winter in peach. In order to understand how bud development progress is regulated during winter we integrated cytological epigenetic and chromatin genome wide data with transcriptional outputs to obtained a complete picture of the main regulatory pathways involved in endodormancy.