Genome-scale Transcriptomic Insights Into the Gene-regulatory Network of Seed Abortion in Triploid Siraitia Grosvenorii

Background: Siraitia grosvenorii (Swingle) C. Jeffrey, also known as Luohanguo or monk fruit, is a famous traditional Chinese medicine ingredient with important medicinal value and broad development prospects. Diploid S. grosvenorii has too many seeds. Thus, studying the molecular mechanism of seed abortion in triploid S. grosvenorii , identifying the abortion-related genes, and regulating their expression will be a new direction to obtain seedless S. grosvenorii . Herein, we examined the submicroscopic structure of triploid S. grosvenorii seeds during abortion. ResultsBy measuring the content of endogenous hormones, we found that abscisic acid (ABA) and trans-zeatin (ZR) levels were significantly downregulated at days 15 and 20 after flowering. RNA-seq of triploid seeds at different developmental stages was performed to identify the key genes regulating abortion of triploid S. grosvenorii seeds. Multiple differentially expressed genes between adjacent stages were identified; seven genes were differentially expressed across all stages. Weight gene co-expression network analysis revealed that the enhancement of monoterpene and terpene metabolic processes might lead to seed abortion by reducing substrate flow to ABA and ZR.ConclusionsThese findings provide insights into the gene-regulatory network of seed abortion in triploid S. grosvenorii from different perspectives, thereby facilitating the innovation of the breeding technology of S. grosvenorii .