Tools
ToolsDe Vega, Jose J., Peel, Ned, Purdy, Sarah J., Hawkins, Sarah, Donnison, Lain, Dyer, Sarah and Farrar, Kerrie (2021) Differential expression of starch and sucrose metabolic genes linked to varying biomass yield in Miscanthus hybrids. Biotechnology for Biofuels, 14. ISSN 1754-6834
Preview |
PDF (DeVega_etal_2021_BBB)
- Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (3MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Background: Miscanthus is a commercial lignocellulosic biomass crop owing to its high biomass productivity and low chemical input requirements. Within an interspecific Miscanthus cross, progeny with high biomass yield were shown to have low concentrations of starch and sucrose but high concentrations of fructose. We performed a transcriptional RNA-seq analysis between selected Miscanthus hybrids with contrasting values for these phenotypes to clarify how these phenotypes are genetically controlled. Results: We observed that genes directly involved in the synthesis and degradation of starch and sucrose were down-regulated in high-yielding Miscanthus hybrids. At the same time, glycolysis and export of triose phosphates were up-regulated in high-yielding Miscanthus hybrids. These differentially expressed genes and biological functions were regulated by a well-connected network of less than 25 co-regulated transcription factors. Conclusions: Our results evidence a direct relationship between high expression of essential enzymatic genes in the starch and sucrose pathways and co-expression with their transcriptional regulators, with high starch concentrations and lower biomass production. The strong interconnectivity between gene expression and regulators, chemotype and agronomic traits opens the door to use the expression of well-characterised genes associated with carbohydrate metabolism, particularly in the starch and sucrose pathway, for the early selection of high biomass-yielding genotypes from large Miscanthus populations.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Funding information: This work was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Council (BBSRC) in projects BBS/E/T/000PR9818 (JDV), BBS/E/W/0012843A BBSRC (KF) and BB/CSP1730/1 (KF). Sequencing was funded through the 'Capacity and Capability Challenge' funding awarded to Earlham Institute's Genomic Pipelines group by BBSRC. Availability of data and materials: Raw reads are deposited in the Short Reads Archive (SRA) under Bioproject ID PRJNA639832. The R code used in the differential expression and enrichment analysis was deposited in Zenodo (http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3834007) and Github (https://github.com/jjdevega/miscanthus_starch_rnaseq). The R code used in the Transcriptional Regulation co-expression analysis was deposited in Github (https://github.com/jjdevega/miscanthus_transcriptional_regulatory_coexpression_network). |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | biomass,co-expression network,miscanthus,rna-seq,starch,sucrose,transcriptional regulation,yield,biotechnology,applied microbiology and biotechnology,renewable energy, sustainability and the environment,energy(all),management, monitoring, policy and law ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1300/1305 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 21 Aug 2025 14:30 |
| Last Modified: | 21 Aug 2025 14:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100196 |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s13068-021-01948-4 |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |