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Fungal Infection Induces Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Changes in DNA Methylation Configuration of Blood Orange [Citrus sinensis L. (Osbeck)]

The biosynthesis of sweet orange anthocyanins is triggered by several environmental factors such as low temperature. Much less is known about the effect of biotic stress on anthocyanin production in sweet orange, although in other species anthocyanins are often indicated as “defense molecules”. In t...

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Autores principales: Sicilia, Angelo, Catara, Vittoria, Scialò, Emanuele, Lo Piero, Angela Roberta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7910907/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33513740
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants10020244
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author Sicilia, Angelo
Catara, Vittoria
Scialò, Emanuele
Lo Piero, Angela Roberta
author_facet Sicilia, Angelo
Catara, Vittoria
Scialò, Emanuele
Lo Piero, Angela Roberta
author_sort Sicilia, Angelo
collection PubMed
description The biosynthesis of sweet orange anthocyanins is triggered by several environmental factors such as low temperature. Much less is known about the effect of biotic stress on anthocyanin production in sweet orange, although in other species anthocyanins are often indicated as “defense molecules”. In this work, citrus fruits were inoculated with Penicillium digitatum, the causal agent of green mold, and the amount of anthocyanins and the expression of genes related to their biosynthesis was monitored by RT-real time PCR after 3 and 5 days from inoculation (DPI). Moreover, the status of cytosine methylation of DFR and RUBY promoter regions was investigated by McrBC digestion followed in real-time. Our results highlight that fungal infection induces anthocyanin production by activating the expression of several genes in the biosynthetic pathway. The induction of gene expression is accompanied by maintenance of high levels of methylation at the DFR and RUBY promoters in the inoculated fruits, thus suggesting that DNA methylation is not a repressive mark of anthocyanin related gene expression in sweet orange subjected to biotic stress. Finally, by measuring the expression levels of the Citrus DNA demethylase genes, we found that none of them is up-regulated in response to fungal infection, this result being in accordance with the observed maintenance of high-level DFR and Ruby promoter regions methylation.
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spelling pubmed-79109072021-02-28 Fungal Infection Induces Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Changes in DNA Methylation Configuration of Blood Orange [Citrus sinensis L. (Osbeck)] Sicilia, Angelo Catara, Vittoria Scialò, Emanuele Lo Piero, Angela Roberta Plants (Basel) Article The biosynthesis of sweet orange anthocyanins is triggered by several environmental factors such as low temperature. Much less is known about the effect of biotic stress on anthocyanin production in sweet orange, although in other species anthocyanins are often indicated as “defense molecules”. In this work, citrus fruits were inoculated with Penicillium digitatum, the causal agent of green mold, and the amount of anthocyanins and the expression of genes related to their biosynthesis was monitored by RT-real time PCR after 3 and 5 days from inoculation (DPI). Moreover, the status of cytosine methylation of DFR and RUBY promoter regions was investigated by McrBC digestion followed in real-time. Our results highlight that fungal infection induces anthocyanin production by activating the expression of several genes in the biosynthetic pathway. The induction of gene expression is accompanied by maintenance of high levels of methylation at the DFR and RUBY promoters in the inoculated fruits, thus suggesting that DNA methylation is not a repressive mark of anthocyanin related gene expression in sweet orange subjected to biotic stress. Finally, by measuring the expression levels of the Citrus DNA demethylase genes, we found that none of them is up-regulated in response to fungal infection, this result being in accordance with the observed maintenance of high-level DFR and Ruby promoter regions methylation. MDPI 2021-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7910907/ /pubmed/33513740 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants10020244 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sicilia, Angelo
Catara, Vittoria
Scialò, Emanuele
Lo Piero, Angela Roberta
Fungal Infection Induces Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Changes in DNA Methylation Configuration of Blood Orange [Citrus sinensis L. (Osbeck)]
title Fungal Infection Induces Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Changes in DNA Methylation Configuration of Blood Orange [Citrus sinensis L. (Osbeck)]
title_full Fungal Infection Induces Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Changes in DNA Methylation Configuration of Blood Orange [Citrus sinensis L. (Osbeck)]
title_fullStr Fungal Infection Induces Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Changes in DNA Methylation Configuration of Blood Orange [Citrus sinensis L. (Osbeck)]
title_full_unstemmed Fungal Infection Induces Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Changes in DNA Methylation Configuration of Blood Orange [Citrus sinensis L. (Osbeck)]
title_short Fungal Infection Induces Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Changes in DNA Methylation Configuration of Blood Orange [Citrus sinensis L. (Osbeck)]
title_sort fungal infection induces anthocyanin biosynthesis and changes in dna methylation configuration of blood orange [citrus sinensis l. (osbeck)]
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7910907/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33513740
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants10020244
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