Marker Development for Reference Genes in Exogenous Hormones Treated Lycoris Aurea Bulb

Abstract

As a plant of great medicinal and ornamental value, it's greatly significant to increase the bulb yield of Lycoris aurea. Exogenous hormone treatment is one of the promising methods for the artificial reproduction of L. aurea. To study its molecular mechanism, it is necessary to conduct quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) to analyze the expression of related genes, wherein selection of applicable reference genes is the precondition for accurate gene expression analysis by qRT-PCR. In this study, to screen the applicable reference genes for qRT-PCR in L. aurea under different hormone treatments, based on the transcriptome data of L. aurea., seven candidate reference genes were selected. By four different statistical algorithms (geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper and RefFinder), we evaluated expression stability of candidate genes. Based on the results, the most reliable reference genes for each treatment were as follows: (1) UBCE and TBP for SL, Ethrel, 2,4-EBR treatment and all samples subset; (2) UBCE and TUB2 for GA treatment; (3) TUB2 and UBC24 for 6BA treatment; (4) AP4 and TBP for MeJ treatment and ABA treatment. In summary, our results provided suitable reference genes for qRT-PCR in L. aurea and will contribute to gene expression studies under exogenous hormones treatment.

Keywords: Reference gene, qRT-PCR, Lycoris aurae.