The Draft Genome of a Flat Peach (Prunus persica L. cv. '124 Pan') Provides Insights into Its Good Fruit Flavor Traits.

Aidi Zhang,Xiujun Zhang,Hui Zhou,Xiaohan Jiang,Yuepeng Han

doi:10.3390/plants10030538

Abstract

The flat peach has become more and more popular worldwide for its fruit quality with relatively low acidity, high sugar content and rich flavor. However, the draft genome assembly of flat peach is still unavailable and the genetic basis for its fruit flavor remains unclear. In this study, the draft genome of a flat peach cultivar ‘124 Pan’ was assembled by using a hybrid assembly algorithm. The final assembly resulted in a total size of 206 Mb with a N50 of 26.3 Mb containing eight chromosomes and seven scaffolds. Genome annotation revealed that a total of 25,233 protein-coding genes were predicted with comparable gene abundance among the sequenced peach species. The phylogenetic tree and divergence times inferred from 572 single copy genes of 13 plant species confirmed that Prunus ferganensis was the ancestor of the domesticated peach. By comparing with the genomes of Prunus persica (Lovell) and Prunus ferganensis, the expansion of genes encoding enzymes involved in terpene biosynthesis was found, which might contribute to the good fruit flavor traits of ‘124 Pan’. The flat peach draft genome assembly obtained in this study will provide a valuable genomic resource for peach improvement and molecular breeding.

Highlights

Peach (Prunus persica L.) is one of the most economically important fruits, providing plentiful vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidant compounds for healthy diets
The localization analysis showed that 2132 Indels and 41,602 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were localized in the exon region
Distribution of insertions or deletions of DNA segments (InDels) and SNPs among different chromosomes is shown in Figure 1, which shows that the chromosomal inversions areas have higher density of SNPs and Indels, these large chromosomal variations may affect the accurate detection of the small variations

Summary

Introduction

Peach (Prunus persica L.) is one of the most economically important fruits, providing plentiful vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidant compounds for healthy diets. Peach is acknowledged as an ideal model for genetics and genomics studies of tree fruit species. More than 1000 cultivars of Prunus persica L. Due to selfing as well as important bottlenecks in its recent breeding history, peach has a lower level of genetic variability compared with other Prunus crops. The edible Prunus ferganensis (P. ferganensis), which is native to arid regions of central Asia and featured with long unbranched leaf veins and longitudinal grooves on the pit, was a close relative of cultivated peach, and classified as a species currently [2,3,4]

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Conclusion