Arctic Mustard Flower Color Polymorphism Controlled by Petal-Specific Downregulation at the Threshold of the Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway
Intra- and interspecific variation in flower color is a hallmark of angiosperm diversity. The evolutionary forces underlying the variety of flower colors can be nearly as diverse as the colors themselves. In addition to pollinator preferences, non-pollinator agents of selection can have a major infl...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3072389 2023-05-15T15:00:41+02:00 Arctic Mustard Flower Color Polymorphism Controlled by Petal-Specific Downregulation at the Threshold of the Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway Dick, Cynthia A. Buenrostro, Jason Butler, Timothy Carlson, Matthew L. Kliebenstein, Daniel J. Whittall, Justen B. 2011-04-07 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3072389 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21490971 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018230 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3072389 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21490971 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018230 Dick et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2011 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018230 2013-09-03T13:10:44Z Intra- and interspecific variation in flower color is a hallmark of angiosperm diversity. The evolutionary forces underlying the variety of flower colors can be nearly as diverse as the colors themselves. In addition to pollinator preferences, non-pollinator agents of selection can have a major influence on the evolution of flower color polymorphisms, especially when the pigments in question are also expressed in vegetative tissues. In such cases, identifying the target(s) of selection starts with determining the biochemical and molecular basis for the flower color variation and examining any pleiotropic effects manifested in vegetative tissues. Herein, we describe a widespread purple-white flower color polymorphism in the mustard Parrya nudicaulis spanning Alaska. The frequency of white-flowered individuals increases with increasing growing-season temperature, consistent with the role of anthocyanin pigments in stress tolerance. White petals fail to produce the stress responsive flavonoid intermediates in the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway (ABP), suggesting an early pathway blockage. Petal cDNA sequences did not reveal blockages in any of the eight enzyme-coding genes in white-flowered individuals, nor any color differentiating SNPs. A qRT-PCR analysis of white petals identified a 24-fold reduction in chalcone synthase (CHS) at the threshold of the ABP, but no change in CHS expression in leaves and sepals. This arctic species has avoided the deleterious effects associated with the loss of flavonoid intermediates in vegetative tissues by decoupling CHS expression in petals and leaves, yet the correlation of flower color and climate suggests that the loss of flavonoids in the petals alone may affect the tolerance of white-flowered individuals to colder environments. Text Arctic Alaska PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic PLoS ONE 6 4 e18230 |
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Research Article Dick, Cynthia A. Buenrostro, Jason Butler, Timothy Carlson, Matthew L. Kliebenstein, Daniel J. Whittall, Justen B. Arctic Mustard Flower Color Polymorphism Controlled by Petal-Specific Downregulation at the Threshold of the Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway |
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Research Article |
description |
Intra- and interspecific variation in flower color is a hallmark of angiosperm diversity. The evolutionary forces underlying the variety of flower colors can be nearly as diverse as the colors themselves. In addition to pollinator preferences, non-pollinator agents of selection can have a major influence on the evolution of flower color polymorphisms, especially when the pigments in question are also expressed in vegetative tissues. In such cases, identifying the target(s) of selection starts with determining the biochemical and molecular basis for the flower color variation and examining any pleiotropic effects manifested in vegetative tissues. Herein, we describe a widespread purple-white flower color polymorphism in the mustard Parrya nudicaulis spanning Alaska. The frequency of white-flowered individuals increases with increasing growing-season temperature, consistent with the role of anthocyanin pigments in stress tolerance. White petals fail to produce the stress responsive flavonoid intermediates in the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway (ABP), suggesting an early pathway blockage. Petal cDNA sequences did not reveal blockages in any of the eight enzyme-coding genes in white-flowered individuals, nor any color differentiating SNPs. A qRT-PCR analysis of white petals identified a 24-fold reduction in chalcone synthase (CHS) at the threshold of the ABP, but no change in CHS expression in leaves and sepals. This arctic species has avoided the deleterious effects associated with the loss of flavonoid intermediates in vegetative tissues by decoupling CHS expression in petals and leaves, yet the correlation of flower color and climate suggests that the loss of flavonoids in the petals alone may affect the tolerance of white-flowered individuals to colder environments. |
format |
Text |
author |
Dick, Cynthia A. Buenrostro, Jason Butler, Timothy Carlson, Matthew L. Kliebenstein, Daniel J. Whittall, Justen B. |
author_facet |
Dick, Cynthia A. Buenrostro, Jason Butler, Timothy Carlson, Matthew L. Kliebenstein, Daniel J. Whittall, Justen B. |
author_sort |
Dick, Cynthia A. |
title |
Arctic Mustard Flower Color Polymorphism Controlled by Petal-Specific Downregulation at the Threshold of the Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway |
title_short |
Arctic Mustard Flower Color Polymorphism Controlled by Petal-Specific Downregulation at the Threshold of the Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway |
title_full |
Arctic Mustard Flower Color Polymorphism Controlled by Petal-Specific Downregulation at the Threshold of the Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway |
title_fullStr |
Arctic Mustard Flower Color Polymorphism Controlled by Petal-Specific Downregulation at the Threshold of the Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway |
title_full_unstemmed |
Arctic Mustard Flower Color Polymorphism Controlled by Petal-Specific Downregulation at the Threshold of the Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway |
title_sort |
arctic mustard flower color polymorphism controlled by petal-specific downregulation at the threshold of the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3072389 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21490971 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018230 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Alaska |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3072389 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21490971 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018230 |
op_rights |
Dick et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018230 |
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PLoS ONE |
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6 |
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4 |
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e18230 |
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1766332765364551680 |