Researchers Find Differentially-Expressed Genes Between Normal and Malformed Flowers in Sugar Apple

Sugar apple (Annona squamosa), a popular fruit with high medicinal and nutritional properties, is widely cultivated in tropical South Asia and America. The malformed flower is a major problem for sugar apple, significantly reducing its fruit yields. However, little information is available on the differences between normal and malformed flowers of sugar apple. To study these differences, Kaidong Liu from the Lingnan Normal University in China prepared cDNA libraries from normal and malformed flowers independently for sequencing.

The data generated a total of 70,189,896 reads that were integrated and assembled into 55,097 unigenes. A large number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were then identified. Among these DEGs were 701 flower development-associated transcription factor encoding genes. Furthermore, a large number of flowering- and hormone-related DEGs were also identified, most of which were found to be downregulated in the malformed flowers. The malformed flowers also displayed lower hormone levels compared to the normal flowers.

The data from this research will serve as a comprehensive resource for investigating the regulation mechanism involved in flower development in sugar apple.

For more information, read the article in BMC Plant Biology.