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QTL analysis for capsaicinoid content in Capsicum

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Abstract

Pungency or “heat” found in Capsicum fruit results from the biosynthesis and accumulation of alkaloid compounds known as capsaicinoids in the dissepiment, placental tissue adjacent to the seeds. Pepper cultivars differ with respect to their level of pungency because of quantitative and qualitative variation in capsaicinoid content. We analyzed the segregation of three capsaicinoids: capsaicin, dihydrocapsaicin and nordihydrocapsaicin in an inter-specific cross between a mildly pungent Capsicum annuum ‘NuMex RNaky’ and the wild, highly pungent C. frutescens accession BG2814-6. F3 families were analyzed in three trials in California and in Israel and a dense molecular map was constructed comprised mostly of loci defined by simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Six QTL controlling capsaicinoid content were detected on three chromosomes. One gene from the capsaicinoid biosynthetic pathway, BCAT, and one random fruit EST, 3A2, co-localized with QTL detected in this study on chromosomes 3 and 4. Because one confounding factor in quantitative determination of capsaicinoid is fruit size, fruit weight measurements were taken in two trials. Two QTL controlling fruit weight were detected, however, they did not co-localize with QTL detected for capsaicinoid content. The major contribution to the phenotypic variation of capsaicinoid content (24–42% of the total variation) was attributed to a digenic interaction between a main-effect QTL, cap7.1, and a marker located on chromosome 2 that did not have a main effect on the trait. A second QTL, cap7.2 is likely to correspond to the QTL, cap, identified in a previous study as having pronounced influence on capsaicinoid content.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by U.S.-BARD IS-3225-01C, BARD Postdoctoral Fellowship Award No. FI-327-2002, USDA IFAFS Plant Genome Award No. 2001-52100-11347, NSF Metabolic Biochemistry Award No. 0412056, and NIH Training Grant GM 08500. MM was supported by a fellowship from the Cornell University Graduate School. We thank Kevin Livingstone and Troy Thorup for assistance with the original population development, Kent Welsh and Jon Bava at Gilroy Foods for assistance with the California field trial and HPLC analysis of the 2001 California samples, George Moriarty and Mary Kreitinger for technical and administrative support, Paul Todd, Mary O’Connell and Erik Legg for useful discussions, and gift support from Syngenta, Seminis and Kalsec, Inc. We thank Byung Dong Kim, Istvan Nagy, Umesh Reddy for their willingness to provide data and materials to map SSR loci. We also acknowledge the essential contributions of proprietary SSR markers, data and in-kind support from Syngenta, Seminis, and DNA Landmarks, and AFLP data from Keygene and Sunseeds/Nunhems.

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  1. Molly Jahn

    Present address: Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Cornell University, 313 Bradfield Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Cornell University, 313 Bradfield Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Arnon Ben-Chaim, Matthew Falise, Michael Mazourek & Byoung-Cheorl Kang

  2. Department of Plant Genetics, Agricultural Research Organization, The Volcani Center, Bet-Dagan, Israel

    Yelena Borovsky & Ilan Paran

Authors
  1. Arnon Ben-Chaim
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  2. Yelena Borovsky
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  3. Matthew Falise
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  4. Michael Mazourek
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  5. Byoung-Cheorl Kang
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  6. Ilan Paran
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  7. Molly Jahn
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Correspondence to Molly Jahn.

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Communicated by M. Xu.

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Ben-Chaim, A., Borovsky, Y., Falise, M. et al. QTL analysis for capsaicinoid content in Capsicum . Theor Appl Genet 113, 1481–1490 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-006-0395-y

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