De novo transcriptome revealed genes involved in anthocyanin biosynthesis, transport, and regulation in a mutant of Acer pseudosieboldianum

Background: Acer pseudosieboldianum is a kind of excellent color-leafed plants, and well known for its red leaves in autumn. At the same time, A. pseudosieboldianum is one of the native tree species in the northeast of China, and it plays an important role in improving the lack of color-leafed plants in the north. In previous study, we found a mutant of the A. pseudosieboldianum that leaves intersect red and green in spring and summer. However, it is unclear which genes cause the color change of mutant leaves. Results: In order to study the molecular mechanism of leaf color formation, we analyzed the leaves of the mutant group and the control group from A. pseudosieboldianum by RNA deep sequencing in this study. Using an Illumina sequencing platform, we obtained approximately 276,071,634 clean reads. After the sequences were filtered and assembled, the transcriptome data generated a total of 70,014 transcripts and 54,776 unigenes, of which 34,486 (62.96%) were successfully annotated in seven public databases. There were 8,609 significant DEGs identified between the control and mutant groups, including 4,897 upregulated and 3,712 downregulated genes. We identified 13 genes of DEGs for leaf color synthesis that was involved in the flavonoid pathway, 26 genes that encoded transcription factors, and eight genes associated with flavonoid transport. Conclusion: Our results provided comprehensive gene expression information about A. pseudosieboldianum transcriptome, and directed the further study of accumulation of anthocyanin in A. pseudosieboldianum, aiming to provide insights into leaf coloring of it through transcriptome sequencing and analysis.