Affiliations 

  • 1 School of Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 2 School of Chemical Sciences and Food Technology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 3 Institute of Systems Biology (INBIOSIS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
PLoS One, 2018;13(9):e0203441.
PMID: 30240391 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203441

Abstract

Jatropha curcas is an oil-rich seed crop with huge potentials for bioenergy production. The inflorescence carries a number of processes that are likely to affect the overall yield potentials; floral development, male-to-female flower ratio, floral abscission and fruit set. In this study, a weighted gene co-expression network analysis which integrates the transcriptome, physical and simple sugar data of J. curcas inflorescence was performed and nine modules were identified by means of hierarchical clustering. Among them, four modules (green4, antiquewhite2, brown2 and lightskyblue4) showed significant correlation to yield factors at p≤0.01. The four modules are categorized into two clusters; cluster 1 of green4 and antiquewhite2 modules correspond to number of flowers/inflorescence, total seed weight/plant, number of seeds/plant, and number of fruits/plant, whereas cluster 2 of brown2 and lightskyblue4 modules correspond to glucose and fructose. Descriptive characterizations of cluster 1 show putative involvement in gibberellin signaling and responses, whereas cluster 2 may have been involved in sugar signaling, signal transductions and regulation of flowerings. Our findings present a list of hub genes for J. curcas yield improvement and reproductive biology enhancement strategies.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.