ABSTRACT
Job’s tears (coix) is a widely used grain with rich and balanced nutritional value. In this study, a total of 71 metabolites, including amino acid metabolism, sugar metabolism and fatty acid metabolism, were significantly increased in the germinating coix through liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Significant increase in gamma-aminobutyric (GABA) content during seed germination was detected in the metabolites detected. Transcript profiles generated through high-throughput RNA-sequencing data and 2431 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. The functional of DEGs were also significantly clustered in glucose metabolism and fatty acid metabolism. In the annotation of metabolite variation and differentially expressed genes, 23 regulatory genes and 10 significantly enriched metabolites for GABA content proliferation during coix germination were identified by association analysis. These results provided a theoretical basis for understanding the germination mechanism of coix and promoting its production and application.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Authors contributions
DH conceived and designed the experiments. DH and DD wrote the manuscript. YH and GD performed the experiments. DD and YH analyzed the data. XZ and YD revised the manuscript. DH and DD contributed equally to the paper. All authors have read and gave final approval for publication. The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
The samples used in this study were grow in China and collected by our lab (College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Taiyuan Normal University (Taiyuan, Shanxi, China). Special thanks to Senior Agronomist Xiangdong Li of Karst Regional Development Institute, Southwest Guizhou for his outstanding contribution in the early collection of germplasm resources! All authors stated that this study comply with the Chinese legislation and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Availability of data and materials
The datasets supporting the conclusions of this article are included in the article and its additional files. The dataset and materials presented in the investigation is not publicly available due to privacy concern but will be available from the corresponding author.