Alfalfa Flower Pigment and Gene Expression Profiles

Integrated metabolomic and transcriptomic data profiles five alfalfa flower types, from white to four shades of purple. The analysis identified 580 common significant differentially expressed genes (CSDEGs) and quantified key anthocyanin pigments like delphinidin-3,5-O-diglucoside. The dataset was created by Hongqi Du and published on figshare in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Correlate the expression levels of 108 trend-following CSDEGs with the quantified anthocyanin content across the five flower types.
• Identify candidate transcription factors, such as MYB and bHLH among the 24 TFs in the CSDEGs, for regulating the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway.
• Analyze the relationship between the blue-to-red pigment ratio and the expression of the 29 CSDEGs definitively involved in the anthocyanin biosynthesis chain.
• Validate the positive correlation between novel gene expression (e.g., MSTRG.59017, MSTRG.14861) and specific anthocyanin (delphinidin-3,5-O-diglucoside, malvidin-3,5-O-diglucoside) accumulation.

Strengths

• Integrated multi-omics data combining metabolomic (pigment quantification) and transcriptomic (gene expression) profiles.
• Focus on a specific biological gradient, profiling five distinct flower types (white and four purple shades).
• Identified 580 common significant differentially expressed genes (CSDEGs) from the comparative analysis.
• Quantified specific anthocyanin molecules, including delphinidin-3,5-O-diglucoside and malvidin-3,5-O-diglucoside, across the flower types.

Limitations

• The dataset is very small (12.1 KB), indicating it likely contains summary or processed results rather than raw sequencing or mass spectrometry data.
• Sample size for the biological replicates per flower type is not specified, limiting statistical power assessment.
• Data is provided in a processed XLSX format; raw reads or spectral data are not included for independent re-analysis.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Hongqi Du.

Collection Method

Integrated analysis of LC-ESI-MS/MS metabolomics and RNA-seq transcriptomics on five alfalfa flower types.

Freshness

Last updated March 2026.