The Gentiana rigescens genome and transcriptome for the investigation of flower repetitive blooming

Background: Reversible flower opening and closing is a specialized reproductive strategy to improve plant fitness in response to ambient environmental changes. As a common phenomenon in angiosperm plants, the underlying genetic and molecular mechanisms remain unknown. Previous research shows that this phenomenon is a characteristic feature of the genus Gentiana, and the external environmental cues driving petal movements differ among species. However, due to the interaction among environmental stimuli, limited progress was made in disentangling the responsible signaling pathways and putative molecular regulators. Results: We identified the alpine species Gentiana rigescens as a model to study repetitive flower opening and closing. Field observations and laboratory investigations confirmed that ambient temperature is the dominant factor driving repetitive flower opening and closing in G. rigescens. We constructed a chromosome-level genome assembly for G. rigescens and performed comparative transcriptomic analyses of flowers under varying natural temperature conditions. Differentially expressed genes revealed Ca<sup>2+</sup> channel proteins as candidate temperature sensors. Both transcriptomic and experimental analyses showed that distinct calcium signaling pathways followed by dynamic cell wall modification underlie the repetitive flower blooming at different temperatures. In addition, auxin showed antagonistic effects on flower opening at high temperatures and closing at low temperatures, possibly by affecting the cell wall acidification and the activities of cell wall remodeling enzymes. Conclusions: This study provides genetic resources for investigating the temperature-regulated repetitive flower opening and highlights the divergent signaling pathways in controlling reversible flower opening and closing.

Citation

Yang, L., Chen, D., Dong, Y. et al. (2026) The Gentiana rigescens genome and transcriptome for the investigation of flower repetitive blooming. BMC Biology 24, Article no. 38. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-025-02483-6

PubMed ID

41388462 (pubmed)

Additional Links

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12915-025-02483-6

Type

Journal article

Language

en

Description

© 2026 The Authors. Published by Springer Nature. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-025-02483-6

ISSN

1741-7007

EISSN

1741-7007

Rights

Licence for published version: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

cbn

Collections

Faculty of Science and Engineering