Fig. 4: Time-ordered gene co-expression network related to flower coloring.

a Five flower developmental stages (T1-T5). b Predicted regulatory network and the connection among TFs and structural genes involved in carotenoid and anthocyanin/flavonol biosynthesis pathways. Inside the pink circles, purple nodes represent MYB genes, olive nodes represent bHLH, turquoise nodes represent WD40 genes, wathet blue nodes represent WRKY genes, and green nodes represent ERF genes. Pink nodes represent remaining TFs. Outside pink circles, orange points represent the enzymatic genes of the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway, locating on the top, crimson points and green points on the bottom represent enzymatic genes involved in anthocyanin and flavonol biosynthesis. L1 to L8 indicate the levels identified in the f-ordered gene co-expression network. c, the heatmaps of average normalized TPMs (z-score) at each time point of flowering at each level identified in the time-ordered gene regulatory network. Three stages of flower coloring were identified as the initial (T1), transitional (T2–T3) and terminal (T4–T5) stages, based on the expression profile. The bar represents the expression level of each gene (z-score). Low to high expression is indicated by a change in color from blue to red.