RNA-seq and phytohormone analysis reveals the culm color variation of Munro.

Background: The clumping bamboo Munro, known as "green bamboo", is famous for its edible bamboo shoots and fast-growing timber. The green and yellow striped-culm variety, named f. W.T. Lin & J. Y. Lin, is an attractive system for researching the culm color variation of .

Methods: Millions of clean reads were generated and assembled into 604,900 transcripts, and 383,278 unigenes were acquired with RNA-seq technology. The quantification of ABA, IAA, JA, GA, GA, GA, and GA was performed using HPLC-MS/MS platforms.

Results: Differential expression analysis showed that 449 unigenes were differentially expressed genes (DEGs), among which 190 DEGs were downregulated and 259 DEGs were upregulated in f. . Phytohormone contents, especially GA and GA were higher in Approximately 21 transcription factors (TFs) were differentially expressed between the two groups: the bZIP, MYB, and NF-YA transcription factor families had the most DEGs, indicating that those TFs play important roles in culm color variation. RNA-seq data were confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR analysis of the selected genes; moreover, phytohormone contents, especially those of ABA, GA and GA, were differentially accumulated between the groups. Our study provides a basal gene expression and phytohormone analysis of culm color variation, which could provide a solid fundamental theory for investigating bamboo culm color variation.