Growth, antioxidant enzyme activity and transcriptome response to low-temperature induction of flowering in cultivated strawberry

Abstract

This study is aimed to investigate the impact of low-temperature treatment on growth, antioxidant enzyme activity, flowering physiology and transcriptome change of the cultivated strawberry, cultivar 'Baiyu'. The runner plants were subjected to 16 ± 1 °C as low-temperature for 5, 10, and 15 days. By comparison with the plants just before treatment (at day 0), it was shown that during the 15-day low temperature treatment, plant height, leaf area, and dry weight significantly, amino acid and soluble sugar contents all decreased with concurrent calyx formation, while the levels of MDA, activities of SOD and CAT increased significantly. Flower bud differentiation began before day 5, as evidenced by significant upregulation in expression of several known flower -related genes including FaAP1, FaSVP, FaCO1, and FaLFY. Tissues from plants treated for 5d and 0d at 16 ± 1 °C were used for transcriptome analysis and the results showed that significant changes in more than 20,179 genes under low-temperature treatment, among which, the expression of genes in metabolic processes, catalytic activity and binding of the molecular function, signal transduction and encoding transcription factors were mostly affected.

Keywords

• Cultivated strawberry
• Low temperature
• Flowering
• Transcriptome