Comparative proteomic and transcriptomic approaches to address the active role of GA4 in Japanese apricot flower bud dormancy release

Hormones are closely associated with dormancy in deciduous fruit trees, and gibberellins (GAs) are known to be particularly important. In this study, we observed that GA4 treatment led to earlier bud break in Japanese apricot. To understand better the promoting effect of GA4 on the dormancy release of Japanese apricot flower buds, proteomic and transcriptomic approaches were used to analyse the mechanisms of dormancy release following GA4 treatment, based on two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and digital gene expression (DGE) profiling, respectively. More than 600 highly reproducible protein spots (P