De novo transcriptome assembly from flower buds of dioecious, gynomonoecious and chemically masculinized female Coccinia grandis reveals genes associated with sex expression and modification

BACKGROUND: Coccinia grandis (ivy gourd), is a dioecious member of Cucurbitaceae having heteromorphic sex chromosomes. Chromosome constitution of male and female plants of C. grandis is 22A + XY and 22A + XX respectively. Earlier we showed that a unique gynomonoecious form of C. grandis (22A + XX) also exists in nature bearing morphologically hermaphrodite flowers (GyM-H). Additionally, application of silver nitrate (AgNO(3)) on female plants induces stamen development leading to the formation of morphologically hermaphrodite flowers (Ag-H) despite the absence of Y-chromosome. Due to the unavailability of genome sequence and the slow pace at which sex-linked genes are identified, sex expression and modification in C. grandis are not well understood. RESULTS: We have carried out a comprehensive RNA-Seq study from early-staged male, female, GyM-H, and Ag-H as well as middle-staged male and GyM-H flower buds. A de novo transcriptome was assembled using Trinity and annotated by BLAST2GO and Trinotate pipelines. The assembled transcriptome consisted of 467,233 ‘Trinity Transcripts’ clustering into 378,860 ‘Trinity Genes’. Female_Early_vs_Male_Early, Ag_Early_vs_Female_Early, and GyM-H_Middle_vs_Male_Middle comparisons exhibited 35,694, 3574, and 14,954 differentially expressed transcripts respectively. Further, qRT-PCR analysis of selected candidate genes validated digital gene expression profiling results. Interestingly, ethylene response-related genes were found to be upregulated in female buds compared to male buds. Also, we observed that AgNO(3) treatment suppressed ethylene responses in Ag-H flowers by downregulation of ethylene-responsive transcription factors leading to stamen development. Further, GO terms related to stamen development were enriched in early-staged male, GyM-H, and Ag-H buds compared to female buds supporting the fact that stamen growth gets arrested in female flowers. CONCLUSIONS: Suppression of ethylene responses in both male and Ag-H compared to female buds suggests a probable role of ethylene in stamen suppression similar to monoecious cucurbits such as melon and cucumber. Also, pollen fertility associated GO terms were depleted in middle-staged GyM-H buds compared to male buds indicating the necessity of Y-chromosome for pollen fertility. Overall, this study would enable identification of new sex-biased genes for further investigation of stamen arrest, pollen fertility, and AgNO(3)-mediated sex modification. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12870-017-1187-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.