Isolation and expression analysis of cDNAs that are associated with alternate bearing in Olea europaea L. cv. Ayvalık

BACKGROUND: Olive cDNA libraries to isolate candidate genes that can help enlightening the molecular mechanism of periodicity and / or fruit production were constructed and analyzed. For this purpose, cDNA libraries from the leaves of trees in “on year” and in “off year” in July (when fruits start to appear) and in November (harvest time) were constructed. Randomly selected 100 positive clones from each library were analyzed with respect to sequence and size. A fruit-flesh cDNA library was also constructed and characterized to confirm the reliability of each library’s temporal and spatial properties. RESULTS: Quantitative real-time RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) analyses of the cDNA libraries confirmed cDNA molecules that are associated with different developmental stages (e. g. “on year” leaves in July, “off year” leaves in July, leaves in November) and fruits. Hence, a number of candidate cDNAs associated with “on year” and “off year” were isolated. Comparison of the detected cDNAs to the current EST database of GenBank along with other non - redundant databases of NCBI revealed homologs of previously described genes along with several unknown cDNAs. Of around 500 screened cDNAs, 48 cDNA elements were obtained after eliminating ribosomal RNA sequences. These independent transcripts were analyzed using BLAST searches (cutoff E-value of 1.0E-5) against the KEGG and GenBank nucleotide databases and 37 putative transcripts corresponding to known gene functions were annotated with gene names and Gene Ontology (GO) terms. Transcripts in the biological process were found to be related with metabolic process (27%), cellular process (23%), response to stimulus (17%), localization process (8.5%), multicellular organismal process (6.25%), developmental process (6.25%) and reproduction (4.2%). CONCLUSIONS: A putative P450 monooxigenase expressed fivefold more in the “on year” than that of “off year” leaves in July. Two putative dehydrins expressed significantly more in “on year” leaves than that of “off year” leaves in November. Homologs of UDP – glucose epimerase, acyl - CoA binding protein, triose phosphate isomerase and a putative nuclear core anchor protein were significant in fruits only, while a homolog of an embryo binding protein / small GTPase regulator was detected in “on year” leaves only. One of the two unknown cDNAs was specific to leaves in July while the other was detected in all of the libraries except fruits. KEGG pathway analyses for the obtained sequences correlated with essential metabolisms such as galactose metabolism, amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolisms and photosynthesis. Detailed analysis of the results presents candidate cDNAs that can be used to dissect further the genetic basis of fruit production and / or alternate bearing which causes significant economical loss for olive growers.