S01 - Session P3 - Selection of differentially expressed genes from transcriptomes of blooming female flower clusters in Vitis flexuosa

Authors: Seung Heui Kim, Soon Young Ahn, Seon Ae kim, Hae Keun Yun *

To explore blooming-specific expressed genes in Vitis flexuosa, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) related to flower development were selected through transcriptome profiling of flowers at different development stages. After removing low quality sequences, we obtained a total of 58,859,224 and 50,931,158 paired-end reads for pre-bloom (PB, 1 week before flowering) and full bloom (FB) stage samples of V. flexuosa , respectively. We obtained the assembly results with a total number of 174,844 contigs (≥200 bp in length) with an N50 length of 2,217 bp, an average contig length of 1,806 bp and a maximum contig length of 12,228 bp from both stages of V. flexuosa . DEGs were divided into 45, 10 and 13 main functional categories of biological processes, cellular components and molecular function with different degrees at level 3. Among the 17,062 investigated genes with transcriptome data, 173 genes showing differential expressions between the PB and FB stages were selected and categorized by their functions in plants. the selected genes belonged to seven functional categories, including ABCDE model, sex specification, flower development, stress-induced proteins, transcripts involved in primary metabolism, ethylene metabolism, transporter proteins, and other proteins of interest. A further expression pattern analysis of 19 flower development-related genes using real-time PCR revealed that ABCDE model genes, related to the sex specification and the flower development, are differentially expressed in three flower genders. Our transcriptome data including a broad gene expression profile for flower development in Vitis flexuosa provide meaningful information about new resources to be used in grapevine breeding programs.