ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1696194
This article is part of the Research TopicGibberellins in Focus: General Insights and Modern Plant ResilienceView all articles
Integrated Transcriptomics and Physio-Biochemical Analysis Revealed Key Genes Affecting Seed Germination of Leymus chinensis
Provisionally accepted
- Institute of Grassland Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot, China
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Leymus chinensis, also known as alkali grass, is a perennial rhizomatous herbaceous plant with significant ecological and economic value. However, its industrial development is hindered by low seed germination rates. Therefore, how to break the seed dormancy and improve the germination rate of L. chinensis seeds has become a hot topic nowadays. In this study, the increase of gibberellin (GA) content is one of the main factors promoting the seed germination of L. chinensis. Furthermore, to further explore the molecular mechanisms underlying seed germination regulation, RNA-seq analysis of seeds at different developmental stages was carried out to explore the potential regulatory factors of seed hulls affecting seed germination of L. chinensis. A total of 21564, 21010, and 31795 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in ‘H_CK_0 vs DH_CK_0’, ‘H_CK_2 vs DH_CK_2’, and ‘H_CK_7 vs DH_CK_7’, respectively. KEGG analysis showed that the DEGs were significantly enriched in plant hormone signal transduction, starch and sucrose metabolism, and MAPK signaling pathway. Within these pathways, we identified several candidate genes potentially involved in seed hull-mediated germination regulation, including those encoding α-amylase (AMY1), β-amylase (BAM1), α-xylosidase (XYL1), β-glucosidase (BGLU10/45), auxin-responsive protein (IAA18), and transcription factors (WRKY, AP2/ERF, ABI2, bZIP, and NAC). These results provide valuable genetic resources for studying the molecular mechanism of L. chinensis seed germination.
Keywords: Leymus chinensis, seed germination, Seed hulls, RNA-Seq, Transcriptionfactor
Received: 31 Aug 2025; Accepted: 15 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Feng, Gong, Liu, Tian, Yang and WU. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zinian WU, wuzinian@caas.cn
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