Abstract:Camellia oleifera Abel., which shows self-incompatibility (SI) and low natural fruit setting rate, has seriously affected its yield production and the following development in industry. To uncover the function of Peroxidase (POD) in self-incompatibility, four POD genes CoPOD1/2/3/4 were cloned from C. oleifera by reverse transcription cloning technology. The length of gene coding regions were 1086, 1011, 1020 and 1218 bp, encoding 361, 336, 339 and 405 amino acids non-transmembrane proteins with signaling peptides, respectively. Although lower sequence similarity among the CoPOD1/2/3/4 proteins is observed, they all contain peroxidase active sites and heme ligand sequences near peroxidase. The phylogenetic analysis revealed closely sequence homology of CoPOD1/2/3/4 to those of Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Ktze. Real-time fluorescence quantitative results showed that PODs were significantly up-regulated, followed by decreased expression within 24-48 h after self-pollination. The transcripts of CoPOD1/3/4 were higher than cross-pollinated in pistills at 36 h after self-pollination. The POD activity in the pistil of self-pollination was higher than that of cross-pollinated within 24-72 h, showing the highest expression peak at 36 h. The POD activity in the pistil of the cross-pollinated was in dynamic balance at early stage, with significantly up-regulated after 72 h. We speculate that the POD genes might be involved in the programmed pollen tube death of C. oleifera after self-pollination, thus participating in the self-incompatibility reaction. Collectively, this paper provides reference for further research on self-incompatibility mechanism in C. oleifera.