Abstract
Durian (Durio zibethinus L.; Family Bombacaceae) is an iconic tropical fruit plant cultivated in Malaysia and the Southeast Asian countries. In Malaysia, durian is recognised as the King of fruits and well known as a rich source of volatile sulphur compounds that make it unique. Fruit pulp of this fruit is an excellent source of nutrients as it contains proteins, dietary fat, fibers, and carbohydrates. Durian leaf and root decoctions are known to have a febrifuge and anti-malarial properties. The understanding of this plant's molecular biology will help breeders to develop a strategy for its further improvements. Hence, there is a need to identify and understand the genes necessary for the quality improvement of the durian fruits. Its genome contains about 46,000 genes which is almost double that of humans (Homo sapiens). The understanding of durian genes will be useful not only in the molecular breeding but also in the microbial production of novel proteins and or enzymes. This review highlights nutritional and medicinal attributes of durian. The molecular studies including the importance of undertaking transcriptomics work and the insights from the most recently reported genome draft are also highlighted.
Highlights
Fruits are an integral part of our daily diet because of their nutritional attributes
In Malaysia, the durian fruit is considered as the King of fruits
Based on the draft genome analysis, Teh et al suggested that a class of genes called as methionine gamma lyases (MGL) is responsible for the durian's unique, pungent smell [36]
Summary
Fruits are an integral part of our daily diet because of their nutritional attributes. Devalaraja et al [11] have reported that the durian fruit pulp is a good source of nutrients as it contains proteins (1.47%), dietary fat (5.33%), fibers (3.1%) and carbohydrates (27%) [11]. The simple sequence repeats (SSR) or microsatellites were used as a molecular tool to access the genetic diversity and researchers found that these markers were useful in selecting the superior varieties in durian breeding programme [27]. A putative α-amylase encoding gene from Thailand durian (clone, Mon Thong) was successfully isolated which contains 2,679 base pair open reading frame (ORF) that encodes for an 892 amino acid long protein [34].
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