Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2
Center for International Scientific Studies and Collaborations, Ministry of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
3
Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben, Germany
Abstract
Introduction: Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is a medicinal and crop plant rich in phyto-compounds such as unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) and flavonoids with a known pharmacological activity. Therefore, defining its activity pathways and functional genes involved in the main biological process during plant growth and development is of high importance. The objective of this study was to define the transcriptome profile and identification of genes, activity pathways, and important proteins/enzymes of safflower flower bract at the flowering stage.
Materials and Methods: RNA was extracted from flower bracts for RNA-Seq assay, and the De novo assembly method was used to reconstruct the safflower transcriptome. Protein identification was run against the UniProt database. Gene ontology (GO) analysis was done for identified unigenes.
Results: 125,544 contigs were generated and 100,652 CDS coding for 12,941 proteins were identified. 8,113 proteins were selected for further downstream analyses. Functional annotation could identify 298 records for molecular function, 1,574 for biological process, 257 for cellular components, and 99 for KEGG pathways. Important pathways were metabolic pathways (991 genes), biosynthesis of secondary metabolites (496 genes), biosynthesis of cofactors (131 genes), endocytosis (93 genes), and glycerophospholipid metabolism (62 genes), respectively. In “biosynthesis of secondary metabolite” pathways, three activity sub-pathways related to biosynthesis/metabolism of vitamins (B2, B6, and D) were detected and the associated genes were identified. Five KEGG pathways related to fatty acids (FA) were identified including FA metabolism, FA degradation, FA biosynthesis, FA elongation and biosynthesis of UFAs. In this research, we didn’t identify any active pathway related to flavonoid biosynthesis in flower bract.
Conclusions: Using De novo assembly, several GO terms and KEGG pathway were enriched for detected uingenes in safflower transcriptome in flower bract at flowering stage.
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