Red-TE Homozygous Alleles of MdMYB10 Confer Full-Red Apple Fruit Skin in a High-Temperature Region

Abstract

Apple is a major fruit crop grown worldwide and provides humans with an essential diet and health benefits. One of the health benefits is related to the accumulation of fruit anthocyanin, which also provides fruit with an attractive red colour. It is known that an MdMYB10 allele containing a transposable element (TE) insertion in its promoter (termed Red-TE allele) underlies anthocyanin accumulation and red colouration in the fruit skin of cultivated apples. However, the distribution of this Red-TE allele in wider Malus germplasm accessions is not clear. In this study, we showed that MdMYB10 RNA in fruit skin was specifically expressed from the Red-TE allele by using allele-specific expression analysis of transcriptome data. Apple cultivars and hybrids with homozygous Red-TE alleles showed stronger red colour than those with heterozygous alleles after analysing 65 cultivars and 337 hybrids. Furthermore, both hetero- and homozygous plants growing in the same high-temperature conditions had different colourations. However, the Red-TE allele was not detected in 16 wild apple accessions showing red skin, indicating that the red skin colour of these wild apples was not conferred by the Red-TE allele. These findings provide guidance for selecting cultivars able to develop consistent red colouration under high growth temperature conditions and open the opportunity for identifying novel genetic variants underpinning fruit red colouration in wild apple species.