Molecular Characterization of Genes Involved in Apocarotenoid Biosynthetic Pathway for The Production of Crocin in Crocus Sativus L

Abstract

Crocus sativus L. is a herbaceous, perennial, sterile plant. It is commonly known as Sattron. newlineThe dried stigma of its flower is one of the most expensive spices and produces unique newlinecharacteristics compounds including crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal which have many newlineeconomic values. Saffron plants propagated vegetatively through corms. To study Saffron plant newlinegrowth under ex vitro conditions, corms were planted in pot and field conditions at Ravenshaw newlineUniversity, Cuttack, Odisha. In pot, the corms were planted in soil with cow manure, and newlinechemical fertilizer (NPK; 20:20:20), and without treatment. In this tropical climatic condition, newlineno flowers were observed in any of the conditions. However, vegetative growth and cormlet newlineproduction were observed in both conditions, In pot conditions, well-vegetative growth, and newlinegood qualities of daughter corms with higher weight (5.32 + 0.392 g/corm) were obtained from newlineplants grown under cow manure-treated soil. The plant grown under NPK-treated soil showed newlinehigher shoot growth but exhibited a lower weight of daughter corm production than corms of newlinecow dung-treated plants. The corms produced from open field conditions were small in size newlineand had infections. The organic fertilizer had a significant effect on cormlet production. newlineAfter observing the above results, the corms were planted in the pots under growth chamber newlineconditions, that provided the natural climatic conditions for the growth of the Saffron plant and newlinethe production of flowers. The flowering process and flower metabolite synthesis are regulated newlineby many factors. However, in these processes, the availability of limited knowledge renders newlinethe understanding of the regulatory factors and the downstream process of accumulation. Thus, newlinein the current investigation, the Saffron flower samples were collected for the proteomics newlineanalysis. This study resulted in the identification and expression studies of stage-specific newlineproteins of Saffron flower by integrating mass spectrometry data of five different stages of newlineSaffron flower like cor