Abstract
Final fruit size of apple (Malus domestica) cultivars is related to both mesocarp cell division and cell expansion during fruit growth, but it is unclear whether the cell division and/or cell enlargement determine most of the differences in fruit size between Malus species. In this study, by using an interspecific hybrid population between Malus asiatica “Zisai Pearl” and Malus domestica cultivar “Red Fuji,” we found that the mesocarp cell number was the main causal factor of diversity in fruit size between Malus species. Rapid increase in mesocarp cell number occurred prior to 28 days after anthesis (DAA), while cell size increased gradually after 28 DAA until fruit ripening. Six candidate genes related to auxin signaling or cell cycle were predicted by combining the RNA-seq data and previous QTL data for fruit weight. Two InDels and 10 SNPs in the promoter of a small auxin upregulated RNA gene MdSAUR36 in Zisai Pearl led to a lower promoter activity than that of Red Fuji. One non-synonymous SNP G/T at 379 bp downstream of the ATG codon of MdSAUR36, which was heterozygous in Zisai Pearl, exerted significant genotype effects on fruit weight, length, and width. Transgenic apple calli by over-expressing or RNAi MdSAUR36 confirmed that MdSAUR36 participated in the negative regulation of mesocarp cell division and thus apple fruit size. These results could provide new insights in the molecular mechanism of small fruit size in Malus accession and be potentially used in molecular assisted breeding via interspecific hybridization.
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Data availability
The apple genome used was a version of the Malus × domestica genome GDDH13_v1.1 (GDDH13, https:// iris.angers. inra. fr/ gddh13/). All the sequencing data of RNA-seq are available in the National Center for Biotechnology Information Sequence Read Archive database, with the accession number PRJNA998177 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/PRJNA998177).
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Improvement of Horticultural Crops (Nutrition and Physiology) of the Ministry of Agriculture, People’s Republic of China, for providing the experimental platform.
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This work was funded by the Modern Agricultural Industry Technology System (CARS-27) and the Key Research and Development Program of Hebei (21326353D; 21326308D). The funding bodies had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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ZT, BW, and XZ conceived and designed the experiments. JL, LZ, YW, TW, XZ, and ZH contributed to the plant materials. ZT performed the experiments. ZT, BW, and XZ wrote or revised the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.
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Tian, Z., Wu, B., Liu, J. et al. Genetic variations in MdSAUR36 participate in the negative regulation of mesocarp cell division and fruit size in Malus species. Mol Breeding 44, 1 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-024-01441-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-024-01441-4