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DNA marker-assisted evaluation of fruit firmness at harvest and post-harvest fruit softening in a diverse apple germplasm

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Abstract

Several different genes have been proposed as responsible for fruit texture variability at harvest and/or after storage. We have analysed 127 apple cultivars for allelic composition in two key genes that are directly involved in the ethylene biosynthesis pathway, Md-ACS1 and Md-ACO1, and two other genes that are involved in cell wall degradation, Md-Exp7 and Md-PG1. Firmness was measured with a penetrometer at harvest and after 6 or 12 weeks (early- and late-maturing cultivars, respectively) of cold storage. Maturation time was positively correlated with firmness at harvest and negatively correlated with fruit softening rate (difference between firmness at harvest and after storage, divided by number of weeks in storage). Polyploid cultivars showed significantly higher firmness at harvest compared to diploids. Alleles previously described as responsible for good texture were associated with significantly lower softening for Md-ACS1 and Md-PG1, but the opposite was noted for Md-EXP7. Results were nonsignificant for Md-ACO1. Allele frequencies were very uneven in all four loci, with the three most common multi-locus configurations accounting for 64 % of the entire material. The predictive power of these genes was calculated with a partial least squares discriminant analysis, and these accounted for 15 % of the observed variation in initial firmness and 18 % for softening rate. Inclusion of maturation time, storage time (i.e. 6 or 12 weeks) and initial firmness into the model however increased the predictability of softening rate to 38 %. Dividing the material in modern (released after 1960) and old cultivars did not change the outcome of our analyses.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Larisa Garkava-Gustavsson who contributed some of the DNA samples, to Ibrahim Tahir who helped with fruit collection and to Anna Zborowska and Charlotte Håhus for excellent technical assistance. This study was supported by a grant to Hilde Nybom from The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Balsgård, Department of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Fjälkestadsvägen 459, 29194, Kristianstad, Sweden

    Hilde Nybom, Masoud Ahmadi-Afzadi & Jasna Sehic

  2. BIOSYST-MeBioS, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Willem de Croylaan 42, bus 2428, 3001, Heverlee, Belgium

    Maarten Hertog

Authors
  1. Hilde Nybom
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  2. Masoud Ahmadi-Afzadi
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  3. Jasna Sehic
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  4. Maarten Hertog
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Correspondence to Hilde Nybom.

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Communicated by D. Chagné

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Nybom, H., Ahmadi-Afzadi, M., Sehic, J. et al. DNA marker-assisted evaluation of fruit firmness at harvest and post-harvest fruit softening in a diverse apple germplasm. Tree Genetics & Genomes 9, 279–290 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-012-0554-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-012-0554-z

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