Alfalfa Flower Color Transcriptomic and Metabolomic 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 and quantified key anthocyanin pigments like delphinidin-3,5-O-diglucoside. The dataset supports investigation into the molecular mechanisms underlying quantitative flower color variation.

Use Cases

• Identify candidate transcription factors like MYB and bHLH from 108 regularly trending genes to model regulatory networks for purple color formation.
• Correlate expression levels of novel genes (e.g., MSTRG.59017, MSTRG.14861) with quantified anthocyanin contents such as malvidin-3,5-O-diglucoside across flower types.
• Analyze the ratio of blue to red pigments across the ZH1 to ZH4 gradient to understand its contribution to the observed color spectrum.
• Use the 580 common significant differentially expressed genes (CSDEGs) for pathway enrichment analysis related to pigment synthesis, transport, and deposition.

Strengths

• Data integrates two omics layers—transcriptomics and metabolomics—for a multi-faceted analysis of flower color.
• Analysis is grounded in five distinct biological samples (white and four purple shades), enabling gradient-based studies.
• Findings are validated with qRT-PCR, and an O2PLS model was used for joint dataset analysis.

Limitations

• The dataset is very small at 15.1 KB, indicating it likely contains summary or processed results rather than raw sequencing or spectral data.
• Sample size is limited to five flower types from a single plant species, restricting generalizability.
• Row and column counts are unknown, limiting assessment of the dataset's analytical scope and granularity.

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.