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Sugar accumulation and characterization of metabolizing enzyme genes in leafy head of Chinese cabbage (Brassica campestris L. ssp. pekinensis)

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Abstract

Chinese cabbage (Brassica campestris L. ssp. pekinensis) is a widely cultivated vegetable crop in eastern Asia. The flavor of Chinese cabbage was mostly affected by soluble sugar content. To make clear its accumulation and regulation mechanism, the content of different sugars in the internal blade (IB), the internal midrib (IM), the external blade (EB) and the external midrib (EM) of the leafy head were determined during the leafy head formation. The results showed that fructose was the major sugar accumulated in the internal tissues, followed by glucose. IM was the main tissue of sugar accumulation with the highest contents of total soluble sugar and hexose at harvest. RNA sequencing data of the four tissues at 90 DAS showed that the number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in IB and IM was the least (2408), while the number of DEGs between the external and internal tissues ranged from 6037 to 8674. The enzyme genes differentially expressed in ‘starch and sucrose metabolism’ pathway was detected during the leafy head development. The expression of two sucrose synthase (SUS) genes, SUS1a (Bra002332) and SUS1b (Bra006587), were always higher in IM than in the other tissues, and positively correlated with the content of total soluble sugar and hexose, respectively. SUS1 was considered to play an important role in leafy head development and sugar accumulation in Chinese cabbage.

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The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the study can be obtained from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Yonglin Deng at the Shandong Denghai Seed Industry, Ltd., West Seed Branch for assistance with sample collection. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31401864), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (Grant No. ZR2016CM15), the Key Research and Development Program of Shandong Province (Grant No. 2018GNC110022), the Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (Grant No. J18KA161) and the Higher-level Talents Research Fund of Qingdao Agricultural University (Grant No. 6631113319).

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LQQ performed the majority of the experiment and data analysis, and wrote the manuscript. LJQ was responsible for part of the experiment and revision of the manuscript. LWX designed and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Weixin Liu.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Communicated by Sung Kyeom Kim.

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Liu, Q., Li, J. & Liu, W. Sugar accumulation and characterization of metabolizing enzyme genes in leafy head of Chinese cabbage (Brassica campestris L. ssp. pekinensis). Hortic. Environ. Biotechnol. 62, 17–29 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13580-020-00294-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13580-020-00294-y

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