Transcriptome analysis around the onset of strawberry fruit ripening uncovers an important role of oxidative phosphorylation in ripening

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; p. 41477
• Main Authors: Wang, Qing-Hua, Zhao, Cheng, Zhang, Miao, Li, Yu-Zhong, Shen, Yuan-Yue, Guo, Jia-Xuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 14-02-2017; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 38; 38/91; 631/136; 631/449; 631/61; 96; 96/47; 96/95; Abscisic acid; Biosynthesis; Energy metabolism; Fragaria ananassa; Fruits; Gene expression; Glycolysis; Humanities and Social Sciences; Metabolism; Mitochondrial DNA; Molecular modelling; multidisciplinary; Oxidative phosphorylation; Phosphorylation; Protein turnover; Pyruvic acid; Ripening; Science; Sugar
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep41477

Although much progress has been made towards understanding the ripening of non-climacteric fruit using the strawberry as a model plant, the defined molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Here, RNA-sequencing was performed using four cDNA libraries around the onset of ripening, and a total of 31,793 unigenes and 335 pathways were annotated including the top five pathways, which were involved in ribosome, spliceosome, protein processing, plant-pathogen interaction and plant hormone signaling, and the important DEGs related to ripening were annotated to be mainly involved in protein translation and processing, sugar metabolism, energy metabolism, phytohormones, antioxidation, pigment and softening, especially finding a decreased trend of oxidative phosphorylation during red-coloring. VIGS-mediated downregulation of the pyruvate dehydrogenase gene
PDHE1α
, a key gene for glycolysis-derived oxidative phosphorylation, could inhibit respiration and ATP biosynthesis, whilst promote the accumulation of sugar, ABA, ETH, and PA, ultimately accelerating the ripening. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that a set of metabolism transition occurred during green-to-white-to-red stages that are coupled with more-to-less DEGs, and the oxidative phosphorylation plays an important role in the regulation of ripening. On the basis of our results, we discuss an oxidative phosphorylation-based model underlying strawberry fruit ripening.