The accumulation of ascorbic acid and lignin, and differential expression of ascorbic acid and lignin related-genes in yellow celery

ABSTRACT

Increasing the level of AsA and maintaining proper lignin content will improve the quality of celery (Apium graveolens L.). However, the study on the regulation mechanism of genes related to AsA and lignin metabolism in celery was limited, especially in yellow celery. In this study, the accumulation of AsA and lignin and the expression profiles of related-genes were detected in three kinds of yellow celery. The results showed that the content of AsA was higher in the leaf blades of ‘Huangtaiji’ and the petioles of ‘Jinhuangqincai’. The content of lignin was the highest in ‘Jinhuangqincai’ leaves, followed by ‘Liuhehuangxinqin’ and ‘Huangtaiji’. The expression levels of AgAO (r = −0.032) and AgDHAR1 (r = −0.193) genes involved in AsA recycling and degradation showed negatively correlated with AsA content. AgCCoAOMT (r = 0.692) and AgF5 H (r = 0.733) genes expression were positively correlated with lignin content, while the expression of AgCAD (r = −0.694) and AgC3ʹH (r = −0.722) genes were negatively correlated with lignin content. Our current work provided potential theoretical basis for effectively changing accumulation of AsA and lignin by genetic engineering in celery.

KEYWORDS:

• Ascorbic acid
• lignin
• metabolic pathway
• gene expression
• yellow celery

Author contribution statement

ASX and XD initiated and designed the research; XD, LY, DS, LZC, and SS performed the experiments; XD, AQD, ZSX, and SL analysed the data; ASX and GMX contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools; XD wrote the paper; ASX, JXL, and KF revised the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by Jiangsu Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Fund [CX(18)2007], New Century Excellent Talents in University [NCET-11-0670], National Natural Science Foundation of China [31272175], Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions Project (PAPD), Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province [KYCX18_0692].