Fruit maturation and dehiscence are important developmental processes in legume species as they influence fruit quality and crop productivity (Tang et al., 2013). Despite that key regulators of fruit development have been characterized in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana, the genetic basis of fruit maturation and dehiscence remains unknown in agricultural species like common bean (Li and Olsen, 2016). Recent advances in genetic, molecular and physiological research, mostly brought about by the implementation of high-throughput and next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have begun to decipher the genetic networks regulating fruit development. With the aim to unravel the transcriptomic changes associated to pod maturation and dehiscence, we used a powerful RNA-seq bioinformatics protocol to compared immature and mature pods of two accessions, which also differed in deshiscence and fiber content. RNA-seq short reads were aligned to the most recent update of the Phaseolus vulgaris reference genome, then computing the fold changes in assembled transcript expression among different developmental stages. Using Phytozome gene annotation for common bean, a significant number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were associated with pod maturation in both accessions, which were mainly involved in transmembrane transporter activity, carbohydrate metabolism and photosynthesis. Furthermore, among DEGs between dehiscent and indehiscent fruits highlights genes related to oxidation-reduction and lipid metabolic processes. This work provides comprehensive insights into pod maturation and dehiscence, identifying gene expression profiles with major roles on these developmental processes.

Resumen del póster presentado en la "8th International Conference on Legume Genetics and Genomics (ICLGG)", que tuvo lugar en Siófok, Hungría, entre el 18 y el 22 de septiembre de 2017.

This work was financially supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (AGL2014-51809-R and AGL2015-64991-C3-1-R) and UE-FEDER Program.

Peer reviewed