Gene expression profile indicates involvement of NO in Camellia sinensis pollen tube growth at low temperature

DEGs identified from the comparison between control (CsPT-CK) and 4 °C-treated (CsPT-LT) pollen tbues. All of the samples were replicated three times. CK and LT FPKM: fragments per kb per million reads for each unigene in the CK and LT libraries, respectively. The log2Ratio (LT/CK): ratio between the FPKM of LT and CK. The absolute values of log2Ratio > 1 and probability > 0.7 were used as threshold for assigning significance. Annotation of DEGs against NR, NT, Swiss-Prot protein, KEGG, COG and GO were all reported in the tables. “-”: no hit. (XLS 381 kb

CsPDC-E1α, a novel pyruvate dehydrogenase complex E1α subunit gene from Camellia sinensis, is induced during cadmium inhibiting pollen tube growth

Cadmium (Cd) is one of the most toxic heavy metal pollutants highly hazardous to pollen tubes by disrupting mitochondria. Mitochondrial pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDC) plays important roles in cellular metabolism and links cytosolic glycolytic metabolism to the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA). However, the relationship between PDC and pollen germination and pollen tube growth under Cd stress remains unclear. Here we found that Cd inhibited Camellia sinensis pollen germination and pollen tube growth in a dose dependent manner and disrupted the tip clear zone of pollen tube. Furthermore, we isolated a novel PDC gene (CsPDC-E1α) from C. sinensis. The full-length cDNA of CsPDC-E1α was 1606 bp and encoded a 393-amino acid protein containing typical PDC TPP-binding site, heterodimer interface, phosphorylation loop region and tetramer interface domain, suggesting that CsPDC-E1α was a member of the PDC_ADC_BCADC subfamily in thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) family. Bioinformatics analysis indicated that the CsPDC-E1α protein shared high degree of homology with that from Petunia x hybrid. The CsPDC-E1α relative expression levels in pollen were significantly higher than other tissues of C. sinensis, indicating that CsPDC-E1α expression is tissue-specific. To confirm the functions of CsPDC-E1α in pollen response to Cd stress, we analyzed the relative expression level of CsPDC-E1α in Cd-treated pollen tubes and found that the expression of CsPDC-E1α was induced by Cd stress. All these results indicate that CsPDC-E1α might be associated with Cd inhibition of C. sinensis pollen germination and pollen tube growth.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Additional file 15: Figure S2. of Gene expression profile indicates involvement of NO in Camellia sinensis pollen tube growth at low temperature

GO functional classifications in transcriptome data of C. sinensis leaves and pollen tubes under low temperature stress. A: GO functional classifications in transcriptome data of C. sinensis leaves under cold stress by Wang et al. [5]. B: GO functional classifications in transcriptome data of C. sinensis pollen tubes under cold stress. (TIF 3893 kb