Fig. 2: Ethylene signaling components differentially regulate cucumber branch and tendril development.

a Editing details of Csein2, Csein3 and Cseil1 homozygous mutants mediated by the CRISPR/Cas9 system. The target sequences and the PAM sites are marked with green lines. Red dashes represent deletions compared with the wild-type sequence. The deleted nucleotides are marked above the sequence. The red letters represent the additional sequences. The dashed boxes show the corresponding premature termination site of the protein. The green boxes on the right indicate regions consistent with the wild-type (WT) protein sequence, and the gray boxes indicate missense protein sequences resulting from frameshift mutations. b Observation of branch and tendril phenotypes of mature Csein2, Csein3, and Cseil1 mutants, the Csein3/Cseil1 double mutant, and WT plants grown in greenhouses. To better display the branches, the leaves within the dashed box were removed and are shown below, while the branches were left untouched. The arrows indicate the branches. Scale bars: 20 cm. c Box plots showing the distribution of the average branch number per node of mature Csein2, Csein3, Cseil1, and Csein3/Cseil1 mutants and WT plants. Twenty nodes were observed for each plant. (d) Tendril phenotype observation of the Csein2, Csein3, Cseil1, and Csein3/Cseil1 mutants and WT seedlings. e Box plots showing the distribution of the average number of tendrils per node of the Csein2, Csein3, and Cseil1 mutants, Csein3/Cseil1 double mutant, and WT seedlings. c and e The centerlines of the box plots represent the median values, and the boundaries indicate the 25th percentiles (lower) and the 75th percentiles (upper). Whiskers extend to the largest and smallest values, and the X mark indicates the mean value. Significant differences in the means (±SE, n = 10 independent plants) between various mutants and the WT were determined using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s HSD test, with different letters denoting significant differences. P values for the mutants compared with the WT are indicated above the corresponding boxes. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.