Fig. 8

Expression analysis of VcARF genes in response to pH stress. A-B Transcript profiling of VcARFs in response to pH stress. The transcriptional response to different pH conditions (pH4.5 and pH6.5) in pH-sensitive Vaccinium corymbosum (A) and pH-tolerant Vaccinium arboretum (B). The transcriptome data were extracted from the publicly-available GDV database (http://www.vaccinium.org) for heatmap generation. Each of pH treatment has four samples for each species, and the numbers represent the sample IDs. The color scale above the heat map indicates gene expression levels, low transcript abundance indicated by blue color and high transcript abundance indicated by red color. C-D Expression patterns of VcARFs in response to pH stress. Total RNAs were extracted from tissue culture seedlings of the cultivar ‘Northland’ (V. corymbosum) under pH 4.8, 5.2, 5.8, 6.8. Data were normalized against VcACTIN, and the expression level under pH 4.8 was set as 1. Error bars indicate SE of three biological and technical replicates, and different letters indicate significant difference (P < 0.05)