Temporal changes in the proanthocyanidins to anthocyanins ratio during dormancy associate with bloom time variations in peach

Authors: RANI DAS, PROTIVA - Virginia Tech; ISLAM, MD TABIBUL - Virginia Tech; LIU, JIANYANG - Virginia Tech; Liu, Zongrang; Dardick, Christopher - Chris; SHERIF, SHERIF - Virginia Tech

Submitted to: Current Plant Biology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/8/2024
Publication Date: 10/19/2024
Citation: Rani Das, P., Islam, M., Liu, J., Liu, Z., Dardick, C.D., Sherif, S. 2024. Temporal changes in the proanthocyanidins to anthocyanins ratio during dormancy associate with bloom time variations in peach. Plant Physiology. 40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpb.2024.100393.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpb.2024.100393

Interpretive Summary: Dormancy is an important adaptive strategy for perennial woody fruit trees to avoid winter injury and harsh condition for reproduction success. As climate change continues, many fruit-production regions in temperate zone will become warmer and warm, which couldn’t provide sufficient amount of chilling to overcome the dormancy in later winter and early spring, directly impacting bloom time, tree vigor and ultimate fruit productivity. Hence, understanding how dormancy is regulated at genetic and physiological levels are crucial for breeding new cultivars with novel traits adaptable to changing climates. In this work, we examined the dynamic change of metabolite profile during the dormancy release and bloom time, and found that proanthocyanins (PAs) positively regulates endo-dormancy release, whereas anthocyanins (ACNs) define blooming at the later stage of eco-dormancy. We further reveal intricate interactions among PA, CAN exogenous ethephon (ET) and abscisic acid (ABA), and their roles in regulation of dormancy release and bloom time. Our finding is of practical and fundamental significance for fruit crop research.

Technical Abstract: Bud-dormancy is the conserved regulatory process with economic and environmental importance in deciduous woody perennials, but its molecular and biochemical mechanisms are still poorly understood. Here, we show two groups of marker metabolites, proanthocyanidins (PAs) and anthocyanins (ACNs), associated with peach floral bud-dormancy regulation. PAs positively regulates endo-dormancy release, whereas ACNs define blooming at the later stage of eco-dormancy. Exogenous ET treatment increased PAs levels during the endo-dormancy release by suppressing ABA levels to delay bloom time. Higher ABA levels in early-bloom cultivars act as the negative regulator of PAs biosynthesis during endo-dormancy release to advance bloom time. We further report that PAs/ACNs biosynthesis regulation genetically determines bloom-time in wild-type peaches in a temperature-DAMs-ABA-mediated pathway, whereas blooming in EVG mutant executes only conserved temperature-regulatory PAs/ACNs biosynthesis pattern. Our result signifies a new text line of biochemical module that describes PAs/ACNs-biosynthesis pattern-mediated control of blooming in dormancy regulatory and non-regulatory pathways.