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. 2018 Mar 22;18(1):48.
doi: 10.1186/s12870-018-1257-x.

Transcriptomic analysis reveals overdominance playing a critical role in nicotine heterosis in Nicotiana tabacum L

Maozhu Tian  1   2 , Qiong Nie  1   2 , Zhenhua Li  1 , Jie Zhang  3 , Yiling Liu  1   2 , Yao Long  1   2 , Zhiwei Wang  1   2 , Guoqing Wang  1   2 , Renxiang Liu  4   5
Affiliations

Transcriptomic analysis reveals overdominance playing a critical role in nicotine heterosis in Nicotiana tabacum L

Maozhu Tian et al. BMC Plant Biol. .

Abstract

Background: As a unique biological phenomenon, heterosis has been concerned with the superior performance of the heterosis than either parents. Despite several F1 hybrids, containing supernal nicotine content, had been discovered and applied to heterosis utilization in Nicotiana tabacum L., nevertheless, the potential molecular mechanism revealing nicotine heterosis has not been illustrated clearly.

Result: Phenotypically, the F1 hybrids (Vall6 × Basma) show prominent heterosis in nicotine content by 3 years of field experiments. Transcriptome analysis revealed that genes participating in nicotine anabolism (ADC, PMT, MPO, QPT, AO, QS, QPT, A622, BBLs) and nicotine transport (JAT2, MATE1 and 2, NUP1 and 2) showed an upregulated expression in the hybrid, a majority of which demonstrated an overdominant performance. RT-PCR confirmed that nicotine anabolism was induced in the hybrid.

Conclusions: These findings strongly suggest that nicotine synthesis and transport efficiency improved in hybrid and overdominance at gene-expression level played a critical role in heterosis of nicotine metabolism.

Keywords: Heterosis; Nicotiana tabacum L.; Nicotine; RNA-seq.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The seeds of VA116 and Basma were collected from Tobacco Institute of Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences (CAAS).

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Nicotine content of F1 hybrids and their parents during leaf development
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Heterosis of the F1 hybrid in Nicotiana tabacum L. of the two developmental stages, BT and AT, which represent before topping and after topping, respectively
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The 12 presumptive additive or non-additive gene expression patterns in F1 hybrid compared to its parents. a Expression patterns of 12 types of DEGs. ♂, male parent; H, hybrid; ♀, female parent. b A number of genes in each of the 12 types of DEGs
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Enriched GO terms for differential gene expression among Nicotiana tabacum L. F1 hybrids and its parents. a The terms of genes showed a predominant expression in upregulated DEGs. b and overdominant expression in upregulated DEGs
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Biosynthetic pathways for nicotine and related metabolites in tobacco. Arrows and double arrows represent enzymatic reactions defined biochemically and undefined steps, respectively. Red, blue, and green circles, represents the gene of overdominant, dominant, and additive expression, respectively
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
qRT-PCR of DEGs in the nicotine anabolic pathway
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Intercomparison of gene expression values derived from RNA-seq and qRT-PCR. Foldchange was calculated from 11 DEGs, and a high correlation (R2 = 0.89) was obtained between them
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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