2025/01/03 by Song Gao, Fu Li, Zheng Zeng +6 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Plant Virus Research Studies #Plant and Fungal Interactions Research #Garlic and Onion Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/hr/uhae365
openalex publication_date 2025/01/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The garlic bulb comprises several cloves, the swelling growth of which is significantly hindered by the accumulation of viruses. Herein, we describe a single-cell transcriptomic atlas of swelling cloves with virus accumulation, which comprised 19 681 high-quality cells representing 11 distinct cell clusters. Cells of two clusters, clusters 7 (C7) and 11 (C11), were inferred to be from the meristem. Cell trajectory analysis suggested the differentiation of clove cells to start from the meristem cells, along two pseudo-time paths. Investigation into the cell-specific activity of invasive viruses demonstrated that garlic virus genes showed relatively low-expression activity in cells of the clove meristem. There were 2060 garlic genes co-expressed with virus genes, many of which showed an association with the defense response. Five glutathione synthase/reductase genes co-expressed with virus genes displayed up-regulated expression, and the glutathione and related metabolites level showed an alteration in virus-invasive garlic clove, implying the role of glutathione in viral immunity of garlic. Our study offers valuable insights into the clove organogenesis and interaction between garlic and virus at single-cell resolution.