*4.5. qRT-PCR Analyses of mRNA*

10 DEGs in anthocyanin biosynthesis and 4 DEGs of transcription factor were chosen for qRT-PCR analyses. qRT-PCR analyses were performed using SYBR Premix Ex TaqTM II (Tli RNaseH Plus) (Takara, Dalian, China) according to the manufacturer's instructions with the following reaction conditions: denaturation at 95 ◦C for 30 s and 40 cycles of amplification (95 ◦C for 5 s, 60 ◦C for 30 s). The β-Actin gene was used as an internal control for normalization. Relative expression levels of target genes were calculated using the 2−ΔΔ*C*<sup>t</sup> [40] against the internal control. The gene-specific primers are shown in Table S7. Experiments were performed with three independent biological replicates and three technical replicates.
