How Do White Cells Survive in Variegated Epipremnum Aureum ‘Marble Queen’?

Faculty #2
Discipline: Biological Sciences
Subcategory: STEM Research

Chiu-Yueh Hung - North Carolina Central University
Co-Author(s): Farooqahmed S. Kittur and Jiahua Xie, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biomanufacturing Research Institute & Technology Enterprise, North Carolina Central University Ying-Hsuan Sun, Department of Forestry, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan, Republic of China Jie Qiu and Longjiang Fan, Department of Agronomy, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China Richard J Henny and Jianjun Chen, Environmental Horticulture Department and Mid-Florida Research and Education Center, Apopka, University of Florida

---

‘Marble Queen’ is a variegated plant having both green (MG) and white (MW) sectors within the same leaf, which provides a valuable system for physiological study. Apparently, the physiological statuses of cells in MG and MW sectors are very different. Thus when color deficient cells grow/develop side by side with normal green cells, they need to cope with the differences between each other and respond to the environmental conditions more efficiently than cells of a normal green leaf. To unveil their communication and interaction mechanisms, we obtained transcriptome data of green and white sectors using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology. Initial comparison results show that there are 848 differentially expressed contigs. Among them, 52.6% were more abundant while 47.4% were less abundant in MW than in MG. Contigs abundant in MW were mostly stress induced or related genes which encode proteins, such as glutathione S-transferase, heat-shock protein, Rab18, Derlin-2, and temperature-induced lipocalin. Those less abundant in MW were mostly involved in the photosystem I and II. Further metabolite analysis of green and white sectors including hormones, carotenoid and chlorophylls was performed. Morphologies of white cells and adjacent green cells were also examined in detail by TEM. All these results will lead us to understand how white cells survive in variegated plants.

Funder Acknowledgement(s): This study was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (HRD-1400946) to Jiahua Xie.

Faculty Advisor: None Listed,