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 and quantified key anthocyanin pigments like delphinidin-3,5-O-diglucoside. The dataset supports research into the molecular mechanisms underlying quantitative flower color variation.

Use Cases

• Identify candidate transcription factors like MYB and bHLH from the 24 TFs within the 108 regularly trending CSDEGs to model regulatory networks for purple color.
• Correlate the expression levels of novel genes MSTRG.59017 and MSTRG.14861 with quantified anthocyanin contents such as delphinidin-3,5-O-diglucoside across the five flower types.
• Analyze the decreasing ratio of blue to red pigments alongside the increasing gradient of purple shades from ZH1 to ZH4 to study pigment composition dynamics.
• Use the 29 CSDEGs definitively involved in the anthocyanin biosynthesis chain to map genetic pathways for pigment synthesis, transport, and deposition.

Strengths

• Integrated multi-omics data combining metabolomic quantification of pigments with transcriptomic profiling of 580 common significant differentially expressed genes.
• Focus on a specific biological gradient, profiling five distinct flower types from white to four shades of purple for comparative analysis.
• Data generation involved validation via qRT-PCR and integration using an O2PLS model, indicating a structured analytical workflow.

Limitations

• The dataset is small in file size (657.0 KB), suggesting it contains summary or processed results rather than raw sequencing or mass spectrometry data.
• Limited to a single plant species (Medicago sativa L.) and a specific trait (flower color), reducing generalizability to other organisms or phenotypes.
• Specific sample sizes, row counts for measurements, and detailed column structures for the underlying data are not provided in the input.

Provenance

Source

Figshare, authored by Hongqi Du.

Collection Method

Integrated analysis of LC-ESI-MS/MS metabolomics for pigment quantification and RNA-seq transcriptomics mapped to the Medicago reference genome.

Freshness

Last updated March 2026.