Identification of co-expression gene related to peanut pod development based on WGCNA
Peanut pod expansion process directly determines the pod size,and in-depth study of this process is helpful to clarify the regulation mechanism of pod size.In this study,peanut varieties with different pod sizes were used to analyze the changes of transcription level in the early stage of pod development,weighted gene co-ex-pression network analysis(WGCNA)was used to identify the key genes related to pod development.The results showed that DEGs of different materials were significantly enriched in transmembrane receptor protein kinase activi-ty,UDP-glucosyltransferase activity,plant-type cell wall,anchored component of membrane and cell wall biogene-sis;MAPK signaling pathway-plant,plant hormone signal transduction,plant-pathogen interaction,phenylpro-panoid biosynthesis and starch and sucrose metabolism were the main significant enrichment pathways.A total of 29 modules were identified by WGCNA,of which Antiquewhite4 and Darkolivegreen modules were significantly cor-related with pod length and width.Hub gene analysis of 200 gene pairs with the highest weights in two key modules showed that gene-LOC112797233,gene-LOC112743864,gene-LOC112701973,gene-LOC112764826 and gene-LOC112710700 were found to play an important role in pod development.GO enrichment analysis of genes in key modules showed that Antiquewhite4 and Darkolivegreen modules may be related to the formation of secondary cell wall and the regulation of cell cycle,respectively.The results will be helpful for further understanding the molecular mechanism of peanut pod development.