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Fruit color is an important economic trait. The color of red walnut cultivars is mainly attributed to anthocyanins. The aim of this study was to explore the differences in the molecular mechanism of leaf and peel color change between red and green walnut. A reference transcriptome of walnut was sequenced and annotated to identify genes related to fruit color at the ripening stage. More than 290 million high-quality reads were assembled into 39,411 genes using a combined assembly strategy. Using Illumina digital gene expression profiling, we identified 4568 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between red and green walnut leaf and 3038 DEGs between red and green walnut peel at the ripening stage. We also identified some transcription factor families (MYB, bHLH, and WD40) involved in the control of anthocyanin biosynthesis. The trends in the expression levels of several genes encoding anthocyanin biosynthetic enzymes and transcription factors in the leaf and peel of red and green walnut were verified by quantitative real-time PCR. Together, our results identified the genes involved in anthocyanin accumulation in red walnut. These data provide a valuable resource for understanding the coloration of red walnut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) belongs to Punicaceae, and is valued for its social, ecological, economic, and aesthetic values, as well as more recently for its health benefits. The ‘Tunisia’ variety has softer seeds and big arils that are easily swallowed. It is a widely popular fruit; however, the molecular mechanisms of the formation of hard and soft seeds is not yet clear. We conducted a de novo assembly of the seed transcriptome in P. granatum L. and revealed differential gene expression between the soft-seed and hard-seed pomegranate varieties. A total of 35.1 Gb of data were acquired in this study, including 280,881,106 raw reads. Additionally, de novo transcriptome assembly generated 132,287 transcripts and 105,743 representative unigenes; approximately 13,805 unigenes (37.7%) were longer than 1,000 bp. Using bioinformatics annotation libraries, a total of 76,806 unigenes were annotated and, among the high-quality reads, 72.63% had at least one significant match to an existing gene model. Gene expression and differentially expressed genes were analyzed. The seed formation of the two pomegranate cultivars involves lignin biosynthesis and metabolism, including some genes encoding laccase and peroxidase, WRKY, MYB, and NAC transcription factors. In the hard-seed pomegranate, lignin-related genes and cellulose synthesis-related genes were highly expressed; in soft-seed pomegranates, expression of genes related to flavonoids and programmed cell death was slightly higher. We validated selection of the identified genes using qRT-PCR. This is the first transcriptome analysis of P. granatum L. This transcription sequencing greatly enriched the pomegranate molecular database, and the high-quality SSRs generated in this study will aid the gene cloning from pomegranate in the future. It provides important insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying the formation of soft seeds in pomegranate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]