Cárcamo de la Concepción, Maria, Sargent, Daniel J, Surbanovski, Nada ORCID: 0000-0002-0653-5845, Colgan, Richard J ORCID: 0000-0002-0653-5845 and Moretto, Marco (2021) De novo sequencing and analysis of thetranscriptome of two highbush blueberry(V. corymbosum L.) cultivars ‘Bluecrop’ and ‘Legacy’at harvest and following post-harvest storage. PLoS ONE:e0255139. pp. 1-24. ISSN 1932-6203 (doi:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255139)

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PDF De novo sequencing and analysis of the transcriptome of two highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) cultivars ‘Bluecrop’ and ‘Legacy’ at harvest and following post-harvest storage Enhanced Reader.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (9MB) | Preview

Abstract

Background: Fruit firmness and in particular the individual components of texture and moisture loss, are considered the key quality traits when describing blueberry fruit quality, and whilst these traits are genetically regulated, the mechanisms governing their control are not clearly understood. In this investigation, RNAseq was performed on fruits of two blueberry cultivars with very different storage properties, ‘Bluecrop’ and ‘Legacy’, at harvest, three weeks storage in air at 4 oC and after three weeks storage at 4 oC followed by three days at 21 oC, with the aim of understanding the transcriptional changes that occur during storage in cultivars with very different post-harvest fruit quality.

Results: De novo assemblies of the transcriptomes of the two cultivars were performed separately and a total of 39,335 and 41,896 unigenes for ‘Bluecrop’ and ‘Legacy’ respectively were resolved. Differential gene expression analyses were grouped into four cluster profiles based on changes in transcript abundance between harvest and 24 days post-harvest. A total of 264 unigenes were up-regulated in ‘Legacy’ and down-regulated in ‘Bluecrop’, 103 were down-regulated in ‘Legacy’ and up-regulated in ‘Bluecrop’, 43 were up-regulated in both cultivars and 355 were down-regulated in both cultivars between harvest and 24 days post-harvest. Unigenes showing significant differential expression between harvest and following post-harvest cold-storage were grouped into classes of biological processes including stress responses, cell wall metabolism, wax metabolism, calcium metabolism, cellular components, and biological processes.

Conclusions: In total 21 differentially expressed unigenes with a putative role in regulating the response to post-harvest cold-storage in the two cultivars were identified from the de novo transcriptome assemblies performed. The results presented provide a stable foundation from which to perform further analyses with which to functionally validate the candidate genes identified, and to begin to understand the genetic mechanisms controlling changes in firmness in blueberry fruits post-harvest.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Blueberry, post-harvest storage, differentially expressed genes, transcriptome analysis, firmness, texture.
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Engineering & Science Faculty of Engineering & Science > Natural Resources Institute Faculty of Engineering & Science > Natural Resources Institute > Food & Markets Department
Last Modified:	05 May 2023 11:20
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28988

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