"Pure color" peach variety improvement has a genetic basis

The flowers of the selfed progeny of heterozygous parents appear white and non-white (pink and red).

White peach blossoms (above) without anthocyanins produce yellow peach fruits (below).

According to Wang Zhiqiang, the corresponding author of the paper, color, as one of the most important fruit quality traits, plays an important role in determining the commercial nature of the fruit.

Lu Zhenhua, the co-first author of the paper, told the Chinese Journal of Science that they used forward genetics to finely locate two different sources of peach flower color and exocarp color.

Combining transcriptome and resequencing data, it is determined that the gene controlling this trait has two alleles.

VIGS technology was used to further verify the function of the gene, and to verify the specificity of the mutation site in the natural population (variety/line).

On this basis, a molecular marker-assisted selection system based on allelic variation was developed, laying the foundation for the ongoing selection and breeding of "pure color" and "bag-free" series of peach varieties.

Related paper information: https://doi.