Alfalfa Flower Color Transcriptomics and Metabolomics Data

Integrated metabolomic and transcriptomic profiling data investigates the purple color gradient in alfalfa flowers. The analysis compares five flower types, from white to four shades of purple, identifying 108 regularly expressed genes and quantifying key anthocyanin pigments. The dataset was created by Hongqi Du and published on figshare in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Correlate the expression levels of 580 common significant DEGs with the quantified levels of delphinidin-3,5-O-diglucoside and malvidin-3,5-O-diglucoside across the five flower types.
• Identify candidate transcription factors, such as MYB and bHLH from the 24 identified, that regulate the anthocyanin biosynthesis chain in the purple flower gradient.
• Analyze the ratio of blue to red pigments across the ZH1 to ZH4 purple flower gradient to understand its contribution to color variation.
• Validate transcriptomic findings by correlating qRT-PCR results with RNA-seq data for genes like MSTRG.59017 and MSTRG.14861 implicated in pigment content changes.

Strengths

• Data integrates two omics layers—metabolomics and transcriptomics—for a multi-faceted analysis of a biological trait.
• Analysis is based on a defined gradient of five distinct flower phenotypes (white and four purple shades).
• Identifies 108 genes with regular expression trends and 29 genes definitively involved in the anthocyanin biosynthesis chain.
• Published under the permissive CC BY 4.0 license, allowing for broad reuse and redistribution.

Limitations

• The dataset is small in file size (1019.3 KB), indicating it contains summary or processed results rather than raw sequencing or mass spectrometry data.
• Sample data and column structure are unavailable, limiting immediate understanding of the data's tabular format and specific variables.
• The study focuses on a single plant species (Medicago sativa L.), limiting direct applicability to other systems.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Hongqi Du.

Collection Method

Integrated analysis using LC-ESI-MS/MS for metabolomics and RNA-seq with DESeq2 for transcriptomics on five alfalfa flower types.

Freshness

Last updated March 2026.