Dissection of the Mechanism for Compatible and Incompatible Graft Combinations of Citrus grandis (L.) Osbeck (‘Hongmian Miyou’)

‘Hongmian miyou’ (Citrus grandis L. Osbeck) is mutated from ‘Guanxi miyou’, with a different spongy layer coloration. Trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata) is widely used as rootstocks in ‘Guanxi miyou’ grafting, whereas ‘Hongmian miyou’ is incompatible with available trifoliate orange rootstocks. To explore the reasons for the etiolation of leaves of ‘Hongmian miyou’/trifoliate orange, anatomical differences among different graft unions, gene expression profiles, and auxin levels of scion were investigated in this study. A histological assay indicated that there was no significant difference in anatomical structure between the compatible and incompatible combinations. A total of 1950 significant differentially-expressed genes (DEGs) were identified and analyzed. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis revealed that genes involved in carbohydrate metabolism, energy metabolism, amino acid metabolism, and plant hormone signal transduction were significantly enriched. Moreover, the expression of nine genes in the auxin pathway were upregulated and three were downregulated in compatible combinations compared with those in the incompatible group. Further experiments verified that indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) content increases in the compatible graft combination, which suggests that IAA might promote graft compatibility.