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| Author(s): |
Lilian Cristina Baldon Aizza
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia |
| Defense date: | 2014-02-24 |
| Examining board members: |
Marcelo Carnier Dornelas;
Adriana Pinheiro Martinelli;
Gladys Flávia de Albuquerque Melo de Pina;
Maria Helena de Souza Goldman;
Alexandra Christine Helena Frankland Sawaya
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| Advisor: | Marcelo Carnier Dornelas |
| Abstract | |
Anthocyanins are frequently responsible for most of the color diversity found in flowers, fruits, seeds and leaves of angiosperms. These pigments have a key ecological function as visual discrimination in animal attraction for pollination and seed dispersal. Given the importance of floral pigmentation in the attraction of pollinators and since the passionflowers are exuberant due to the great diversity in color it was of particular interest in this study to characterize the pigments present in the corona and identification of genes involved in the biosynthesis of these pigments in Passiflora. The anthocyanin profile was characterized by ultra performance liquid chromatography with electrospray ionization and tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-MS/MS) in coronal filaments of P. edulis, P. alata, P. coccinea, P. incarnata, P. suberosa and of the artificial hybrid P. `Lady Margaret¿. The diversity of pigmentation observed in Passiflora species can be explained by the combination of different anthocyanin molecules accumulated in the epidermal and subepidermal cells of the corona filaments. The cell morphology of the epidermis of the corona filaments in flowers of Passiflora can function as a tactile and visual guide for pollinators. Bioinformatics analysis from the PASSIOMA database obtained from reproductive expressed sequence tags (ESTs) of Passiflora edulis and Passiflora suberosa identified fifteen genes from six different gene families potentially involved in the anthocyanin biosynthesis in Passiflora. The putative protein sequences encoded by studied genes together with possible homologs in known species were analyzed by sequence alignment. The determination of the temporal and spatial expression of PeDFR, PeGT, PeWD40 and PsMYB-R2R3 genes may contribute to understanding the mechanisms of anthocyanin biosynthesis in Passiflora (AU) | |