Abstract
Fruit firmness and weight are among the most important fruit quality traits in fruit species. Understanding the control of fruit firmness and weight is essential for the development of domestication research approaches and for the implementation of new breeding strategies. A forward genetic study for these traits was performed using two F1 sweet cherry (Prunus avium) progenies derived from modern cultivars. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis allowed the identification of genomic regions accounting for most of the phenotypic variation in both families. In addition, screening the Prunus persica genome v1.0 permitted the identification of putative candidate genes underlying the QTL with the major effect for fruit weight (LG5) and the one for firmness (LG6). A colocalization of QTLs and candidate genes was found in peach, apple, and tomato. These results give new insights of the interaction between fruit firmness and fruit weight and provide new cues for the identification of genes implicated in the control of these traits. The colocalization of genomic regions between progenies issued from modern cultivars and from modern cultivars × wild individuals suggests the absence of allele fixation within genes controlling fruit firmness and size, two traits potentially involved in domestication/diversification in sweet cherry.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the technical team of the department of “Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie” of the “Institut National de Recherche Agronomique,” Jacques Joly and Lydie Fouilhaux, for producing the hybrids and collaborating actively in the phenotyping, and the Experimental Unit of INRA-Toulenne (UEA) for growing the trees.
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Online Resource 1
Markers used in the final parental maps. (PDF 336 kb)
Online Resource 2
Mean, s.d., IQR (interquartile range), c.v., value range, number of individuals (n) for the sweet cherry (Prunus avium) populations derived from the crosses between ‘Regina’ x ‘Lapins’ and ‘Regina’ x ‘Garnet’ observed during the different years of evaluation of the fruit firmness and weight. (PDF 101 kb)
Online Resource 3
Fruit firmness (Ff) and weight (Fw) of haplotype combinations for the QTL region on the extreme end of linkage group 5 for ‘Regina’ × ‘Garnet’ progeny. Significant difference between means (P > 0,05) are indicated by a star. (PDF 164 kb)
Online Resource 4
Genes located on the Quantitative Trait Loci for fruit firmness and fruit size in linkage groups 5 and 6. Linkage group, sequence name, sequence description, sequence length, #Hits, min. eValue, mean Similarity, number of gene ontologies, description of gene ontologies, enzyme codes and InterProScan codes are provided for each gene. (PDF 1054 kb)
Online Resource 5
Candidate genes located on the Quantitative Trait Loci for fruit firmness and fruit size in linkage groups 5 and 6. Linkage group, sequence name, sequence description, sequence length, #Hits, min. eValue, mean Similarity, number of gene ontologies, description of gene ontologies, enzyme codes and InterProScan codes are provided for each candidate gene. (PDF 207 kb)
Online Resource 6
Distribution of fruit weight (left) and firmness (right) measurements for two cross-pollination populations derived from ‘Regina’ and ‘Lapins’ (a) and ‘Regina’ and ‘Garnet’ (b) (PDF 214 kb)
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Campoy, J.A., Le Dantec, L., Barreneche, T. et al. New Insights into Fruit Firmness and Weight Control in Sweet Cherry. Plant Mol Biol Rep 33, 783–796 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-014-0773-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-014-0773-6