Rong Fan, Meihua Li, Yongbing Zhang, Bin Liu, Xuejun Zhang, Chaohong Deng, Changchun Fang, Wei Liu, Yong Yang
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Peel is a crucial determinant of consumer preference and market value in melons, significantly influencing commercial viability. To overcome limitations in conventional breeding for melon peel color improvement, we used 'VZX' (green peel) and 'HP' (yellow peel) as parental materials to construct an F2 (n = 414) and RIL (n = 116) populations for genetic dissection and mapping. Genetic analysis revealed that green peel color is a dominant trait controlled by a single gene. Using phenotypic data and whole-genome resequencing of the RIL population, we constructed a high-density genetic landscape and identified a major-effect quantitative trait locus (QTL) spanning 77 kb (499.6-576.5 kb on chromosome 4), with a LOD score of 14.85, explaining 41.76% of peel color phenotypic variation. Bulked segregant analysis (BSA) confirmed mapping accuracy. Within this interval, 13 candidate genes were annotated via Gene annotation analysis, including EVM0008709, which encodes the APRR2 transcription factor previously associated with chlorophyll metabolism and pigment regulation in melon, watermelon, and other crops. Three foreground selection markers (RC1, RC2, and RC3) were developed based on EVM0008709 and demonstrated 100% validation accuracy in both the F2 and RIL populations. Additionally, leveraging resequencing data from 'VZX' and 'HP', we designed 204 kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) markers, with 141 exhibiting robust genotyping performance for background selection. Using marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) with 'HP' as the donor and 'VZX' as the recipient, we developed a novel yellow peel germplasm, 'YVZX', which retains the superior flesh quality of 'VZX'. This study establishes an integrated germplasm innovation pipeline spanning from gene mapping to marker development, and molecular breeding, thereby providing a reproducible technical framework for enhancement of melon quality traits.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11032-025-01604-x.
期刊介绍:
Molecular Breeding is an international journal publishing papers on applications of plant molecular biology, i.e., research most likely leading to practical applications. The practical applications might relate to the Developing as well as the industrialised World and have demonstrable benefits for the seed industry, farmers, processing industry, the environment and the consumer.
All papers published should contribute to the understanding and progress of modern plant breeding, encompassing the scientific disciplines of molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, physiology, pathology, plant breeding, and ecology among others.
Molecular Breeding welcomes the following categories of papers: full papers, short communications, papers describing novel methods and review papers. All submission will be subject to peer review ensuring the highest possible scientific quality standards.
Molecular Breeding core areas:
Molecular Breeding will consider manuscripts describing contemporary methods of molecular genetics and genomic analysis, structural and functional genomics in crops, proteomics and metabolic profiling, abiotic stress and field evaluation of transgenic crops containing particular traits. Manuscripts on marker assisted breeding are also of major interest, in particular novel approaches and new results of marker assisted breeding, QTL cloning, integration of conventional and marker assisted breeding, and QTL studies in crop plants.