Diplosporous development in Boehmeria tricuspis: Insights from de novo transcriptome assembly and comprehensive expression profiling

Boehmeria tricuspis includes sexually reproducing diploid and apomictic triploid individuals. Previously, we established that triploid B. tricuspis reproduces through obligate diplospory. To understand the molecular basis of apomictic development in B. tricuspis, we sequenced and compared transcriptomic profiles of the flowers of sexual and apomictic plants at four key developmental stages. A total of 283,341 unique transcripts were obtained from 1,463 million high-quality paired-end reads. In total, 18,899 unigenes were differentially expressed between the reproductive types at the four stages. By classifying the transcripts into gene ontology categories of differentially expressed genes, we showed that differential plant hormone signal transduction, cell cycle regulation, and transcription factor regulation are possibly involved in apomictic development and/or a polyploidization response in B. tricuspis. Furthermore, we suggest that specific gene families are possibly related to apomixis and might have important effects on diplosporous floral development. These results make a notable contribution to our understanding of the molecular basis of diplosporous development in B. tricuspis.