Retrotransposons Control Fruit-Specific, Cold-Dependent Accumulation of Anthocyanins in Blood Oranges[W][OA]

By E. Butelli, C. Licciardello, Yang Zhang, Jianjun Liu, S. Mackay, Paul Bailey, Giuseppe Reforgiato-Recupero, Cathie Martin. The Plant Cell, 2012

668 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The cold dependency of pigment formation in blood orange constitutes a major limitation on production worldwide and is due to the cold induction of retrotransposons controlling this gain-of-function trait. Traditionally, Sicilian blood oranges (Citrus sinensis) have been associated with cardiovascular health, and consumption has been shown to prevent obesity in mice fed a high-fat diet. Despite increasing consumer interest in these health-promoting attributes, production of blood oranges remains unreliable due largely to a dependency on cold for full color formation. We show that Sicilian blood orange arose by insertion of a Copia-like retrotransposon adjacent to a gene encoding Ruby, a MYB transcriptional activator of anthocyanin production. The retrotransposon controls Ruby expression, and cold dependency reflects the induction of the retroelement by stress. A blood orange of Chinese origin results from an independent insertion of a similar retrotransposon, and color formation in its fruit is also cold dependent. Our results suggest that transposition and recombination of retroelements are likely important sources of variation in Citrus.

Subfields: Molecular Biology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/db673c5c792d2ddd67fce74965d75e5dad7e076d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Molecular Biology

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Structural variant calling: the long and the short of it (2019, background): “For example, a transposon insertion near Ruby, a MYB transcriptional activator, leads to the increase of anthocyanin concentration in blood orange compared to pumelo and mandarin [27].”
MYB Transcription Factors as Regulators of Phenylpropanoid Metabolism in Plants. (2015, neutral): “…Niu et al., 2010; Pattanaik et al., 2010; Pierantoni et al., 2010; Zhang et 18 al., 2010, 2012; Takahashi et al., 2011, 2013; Ben Zvi et al., 2012; Butelli et al., 2012; 19 Gatica-Arias et al., 2012; Fraser et al., 2013; Huang et al., 2013a, 2013b; Payyavula et 20 al., 2013; Ravaglia et al.,…”
Enhancement of oxidative and drought tolerance in Arabidopsis by overaccumulation of antioxidant flavonoids (2013, background): “Manipulating the expression of flavonoid biosynthetic genes alters the accumulation of flavonoids in Arabidop- sis and other plants (Shirley et al., 1995; Borevitz et al., 2000; Butelli et al., 2008, 2012).”
Transposable elements contribute to activation of maize genes in response to abiotic stress (2014, background): “There are also examples of functionally relevant TE insertions in tomato, melons and citrus [50]-[52] that can influence gene expression, potentially through chromatin influences that generate obligate epialleles.”