Determination of progoitrin, sinigrin, and glucoerucin contents and the expression pattern of aliphatic glucosinolates biosynthesis pathway genes in different maturity groups of cauliflower.

The present study analyzed glucosinolates in ten commercial varieties/hybrid from all four maturity groups (i.e., Early, Mid-early, Mid-late, and Late) of cauliflower using Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC) linked to a Quadrupole-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer. Three glucosinolates were identified using reference standards as glucoerucin, sinigrin, and progoitrin. The cultivars showed significant (P < 0.05) differences for these glucosinolates. Glucoerucin was highest in late group (1.460 µmol/g fw), progoitrin in mid-late group (0.515 µmol/g fw), and sinigrin in early group (0.366 µmol/g fw). Mid-early group had low content of both glucoerucin (0.359 µmol/g fw) and sinigrin (0.205 µmol/g fw). The highest content of glucoerucin was observed in Pusa Deepali (2.2138 μmol/g) and sinigrin and progoitrin in Pusa Kartiki (0.6173 μmol/g fw; 0.8487 μmol/g fw). The varieties having the lowest progoitrin were Pusa Deepali and Pusa Puashja and lowest sinigrin were Pusa Meghna and Pusa Shukti of early and mid-late groups, respectively. Pusa Snowball Kt-25 had less sinigrin and progoitrin than Pusa Snowball K-1 in late group. The PCR analysis of 15 gene-specific primers revealed amplification from 12 primers. Of these, ten could successfully exhibited polymorphism except MYBA03 and MYBA09. The expression analysis of eight selected glucosinolates pathway genes revealed high expression of BrMYB28-1, BoGSL-ELONG, BrMYB28-2, BrMYB 29-2 in Pusa Paushja, MYB28-3 and BrMYB29-1 in Pusa Ashwini, and BoCYP79 F1 and BrAOP2-2 in Pusa Snowball K-1 over the base variety Pusa Deepali. Low levels of progoitrin and sinigrin and identified gene-specific polymorphism in the varieties will be useful for consumer and breeders' perspectives.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-025-04327-0.