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Scientia Silvae Sinicae ›› 2017, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (2): 76-82.doi: 10.11707/j.1001-7488.20170209

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Screening of Sex Determination Related Genes in Ginkgo biloba

Tang Haixia1, Du Shuhui1,2, Xing Shiyan1, Sang Yalin1, Li Jihong1, Liu Xiaojing1, Sun Limin1   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Silviculture of Shandong Province College of Forestry, Shandong Agricultural University Tai'an 271000;
    2. College of Forestry, Shanxi Agricultural University Taigu 030800
  • Received:2016-01-29 Revised:2016-04-12 Online:2017-02-25 Published:2017-03-23

Abstract: [Objective] In plants, sex determination is a comprehensive process of correlated events, which involves genes that are differentially or specially expressed in distinct developmental phases. Ginkgo biloba is a typical dioecious gymnosperm species with high ecological and economical values. The morphological traits and growth habits are significantly different between mature female and male individuals. These differences are likely related to sex determination in G. biloba. In the present study, the screening of sex determination genes of G. biloba will lay a solid foundation for further exploring the mechanism of sex determination in this species.[Method] We conducted RNA-sequencing of female and male buds (CY and XY) as well as ovulate strobilus and staminate strobilus (CH and XH) of G. biloba from the same family to gain insights into the genes potentially related to sex determination in this species. The expression level of 26 randomly selected differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was tested using quantitative real-time PCR.[Result] Approximately 60 Gb of clean reads were obtained from eight cDNA libraries. De novo assembly of the clean reads generated 108 307 unigenes with an average length of 796 bp. A high level of correlation was found between the RNA-Seq and qRT-PCR for the 26 randomly selected DEGs. Among these unigenes, 51 953 (47.97%) had at least one significant match with a gene sequence in one of the public protein and nucleotide databases. A total of 4 709 and 9 802 DEGs were identified in XY vs.CY and XH vs.CH, respectively. 11 commonly DEGs and transcription factors associated with plant hormone signal and transduction (such as PYL, SNRK2, EIN3 etc.) as well as genes encoding methyltransferase (e.g. MET1 and COMT1) were assumed to involve in sex determination in G. biloba.[Conclusion] The transcriptome resources generated allowed us to identify diverse functional genes that may be associated with sex determination in G. biloba. Our results laid a solid foundation for fully exploring the mechanism of sex determination in G. biloba.

Key words: Ginkgo biloba, sex determination, genes, RNA-Seq

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