Metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses provide insight into the variation of floral scent and molecular regulation in different cultivars and flower development of Curcuma alismatifolia

Abstract

Curcuma alismatifolia is an important ornamental plant of significant economic value, while the floral fragrance has been rarely investigated, leading to a lack of knowledge about the floral scent. By performing metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses, we investigated the variation of 906 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in florets of eight C. alismatifolia cultivars and four different developmental stages of “Chiang Mai Pink” (CMP). The metabolite profiling revealed that the terpenoid group (213 out of 906) was the predominant VOC, accounting for 33.5% and 43.4% of total VOC contents in the florets of different cultivars and developmental stages, respectively. Sweet and woody were the predominant odors not only in different cultivars but also during developmental stages. The varied intensities of other odors contributed to forming odor diversities in C. alismatifolia floret. We uncovered seven terpenoid synthetase (TPS) genes and four MYB genes of significant association with the biosynthesis of terpenoids in eight cultivars and floret development, respectively. We performed an activity assay on four selected TPS genes and identified that Chr15HA1352 and Chr15HA2528 are responsible for the biosynthesis of α-farnesene. The significant association between the MYB gene (Chr03HA28) and seven terpenoids can be observed among different cultivars and during different developmental stages. These findings highlight the varying floral scents in different cultivars and floret development and suggest the potential roles of identified TPS and MYB genes in the biosynthesis of terpenoids in C. alismatifolia.

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Yuanjun Ye from Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Researcher Guangsui Yang from Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences for kindly providing us materials for this experiment. We are grateful for the support and help of Wu laboratory with the experiment setup. This study received support from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences Elite Youth Program (grant 110243160001007), the major scientific and technological project of Zhejiang Province (2021C02071), the Guangdong Pearl River Talent Program (grant 2021QN02N792), the Youth Program of Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (2021JJ40195), the Funding of Major Scientific Research Tasks, Kunpeng Institute of Modern Agriculture at Foshan (KIMA-ZDKY2022004), and the Foshan Self-Funded Scientific and Technological Innovation Projects (2320001007191).

Author contributions

Z.W. and X.L. designed the experiment. X.L., X.Z., D. X. and Y.Y. carried out the experiment. C.S., J.T., and S.L. organized data and drafted the manuscript. C.S., J.T., S.L., Y.Y., X.Z., and Z.W. revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability

The RNA-seq data used in this study have been deposited into China National GeneBank DataBase (CNGBdb) under project No. CNP0005815, which is publicly accessible at https://db.cngb.org/data_resources/. The datasets of metabolite and gene expression analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary Data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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