Abstract
Grape (Vitis vinifera) is an important horticultural crop that can be used to make juice and wine. However, the small size of the berry limits its yield. Cultivating larger berry varieties can be an effective way to solve this problem. As the largest family of auxin early response genes, SAUR (small auxin upregulated RNA) plays an important role in the growth and development of plants. Berry size is one of the important factors that determine grape quality. However, the SAUR gene family’s function in berry size of grape has not been studied systematically. We identified 60 SAUR members in the grape genome and divided them into 12 subfamilies based on phylogenetic analysis. Subsequently, we conducted a comprehensive and systematic analysis on the SAUR gene family by analyzing distribution of key amino acid residues in the domain, structural features, conserved motifs, and protein interaction network, and combined with the heterologous expression in Arabidopsis and tomato. Finally, the member related to grape berry size in SAUR gene family were screened. This genome-wide study provides a systematic analysis of grape SAUR gene family, further understanding the potential functions of candidate genes, and provides a new idea for grape breeding.
Highlights
Grape (Vitis vinifera) is a perennial deciduous vine with abundant germplasm resources and widely distributed throughout the world
The open reading frame (ORF) of the SAUR family obtained from the Phytozome database was analyzed, and the genes without the SAUR conserved domain were removed
The results showed that the SAUR family members were distributed on only 12 chromosomes
Summary
Grape (Vitis vinifera) is a perennial deciduous vine with abundant germplasm resources and widely distributed throughout the world. The activity of cell division determines the final number of cells, but cell expansion is crucial. It can directly and effectively increase the berry volume and determine the final berry size [3]. Cell expansion contributes the most to the final berry size [4]. The growth dynamics of Arabidopsis fruit were observed, and cell expansion and cell division data were collected for quantitative analysis. The fruit size of Arabidopsis mainly depends on cell expansion [6]. During the first rapid growth period of grape berry, cell division and cell expansion occurred simultaneously. At 4–6 weeks after anthesis, grapes entered the slow growth phase, the cell expansion rate decreased, and cell division stopped. Entering the second rapid growth period, the growth was completely dependent on cell expansion [7]
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