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Maternal inheritance has impact on organic acid content in progeny of pear (Pyrus spp.) fruit

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Abstract

Soluble sugar and organic acid levels are important evaluation indices for breeding new varieties of pear. In order to investigate the inheritance of sugars and acids, this study analyzed the inheritance of soluble sugar and organic acid in pear fruit using the reciprocal crossing populations ‘Dangshansuli’ and ‘Housui’ over two successive years. The results showed that the content of most individual acids and sugars, total acid and total sugar content were higher than that of ‘Dangshansuli’ and lower than that of ‘Housui’, trending to an average between the parents. The content of oxalate, quinate, malate, shikimate, and total acid in progenies were higher when ‘Housui’ was the maternal parent, suggesting that the selection of the maternal parent during the breeding process has important effects on the acid content. Conversely, individual and total sugar content did not show significant effects of the maternal parent. In addition, glucose content in progenies showed the increasing trend and sorbitol content showing the transgressive inheritance trait. The correlations for total sugar and total acid of the two populations between 2 years were significant and positive, showing stable sugar and acid traits for fruit in different years. Significant and positive correlations were also found between different components, including oxalate and malate, shikimate and quinate, and citrate and shikimate. Principal component analysis also revealed that oxalate, quinate, malate and shikimate components are closely correlated. Our study thus offers useful information for future pear breeding to improve sugar and acidity quality.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31171928), the Ministry of Education Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-13-0864) and the Six Talent Peaks Project in Jiangsu Province (2014-NY-025).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center of Pear Engineering Technology Research, State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210095, Jiangsu, China

    Lun Liu, Chu-Xin Chen, Yang-Fan Zhu, Lei Xue, Qing-Wen Liu, Kai-Jie Qi, Shao-Ling Zhang & Jun Wu

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  1. Lun Liu
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  2. Chu-Xin Chen
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  3. Yang-Fan Zhu
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Correspondence to Jun Wu.

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Liu, L., Chen, CX., Zhu, YF. et al. Maternal inheritance has impact on organic acid content in progeny of pear (Pyrus spp.) fruit. Euphytica 209, 305–321 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-015-1627-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-015-1627-5

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