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A functional genetic marker for apple red skin coloration across different environments

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Abstract

The red skin color desired by most apple consumers is not easy to achieve in warm climates, as the expression of MYB10, which regulates red pigmentation in apple, is influenced negatively by high temperatures. We describe the development and validation of a genetic marker for red skin coloration that effectively predicts color in a warm summer environment in Spain, as well as more temperate climates in New Zealand and Italy. Following the determination of a major-effect quantitative trait locus (QTL) controlling red skin coloration on linkage group (LG)9, using four segregating populations grown in New Zealand, and screened using the IRSC apple 8-K single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array, the most significant SNP marker (ss475879531) was transformed into a marker suitable for use in a real-time PCR assay. This marker was validated using five apple seedling populations growing in a warm summer environment in Spain, demonstrating that the marker system efficiently predicts red skin coloration and can be used for marker assisted selection, even under conditions considered adverse for skin color development.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the New Zealand Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE; Contract No. C06X0812) and PREVAR Ltd research consortium (Contract No. 26015), by the European Union funded project in the 7th Framework Programme: Marie Curie Actions, People International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) proposals nº 230857 (REDHOTGEN) and nº 295146 (REDHOTGEN-2) and by Spain’s Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA; project RTA 2009-00069-00-00). We thank Slipstream Automation Ltd. for providing the DNA extraction service.

Data archiving statement

The SNP accession numbers from the apple Infinium 8-K array were deposited into GenBank dbSNP. Marker validation data is shown in the supplementary material.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Palmerston North Research Centre, New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited (Plant and Food Research), Palmerston North, 4442, New Zealand

    David Chagné, Chris Kirk, Greg Sawyer & Susan E. Gardiner

  2. Plant and Food Research, Hawkes Bay Research Centre, Havelock North, 4157, New Zealand

    Natalie How, Claire Whitworth, Satish Kumar & Richard K. Volz

  3. IRTA (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries), Parc Científic i Tecnològic Agroalimentari de Lleida–Edifici Fruitcentre, 25003, Lleida, Spain

    Cristian Fontic, Gemma Reig & Ignasi Iglesias

  4. Plant and Food Research, Mount Albert Research Centre, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand

    Simon Rouse & Richard Espley

  5. Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all’Adige, Trento, Italy

    Lara Poles & Michela Troggio

Authors
  1. David Chagné
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  2. Chris Kirk
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  3. Natalie How
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  4. Claire Whitworth
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  5. Cristian Fontic
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  6. Gemma Reig
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  7. Greg Sawyer
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  8. Simon Rouse
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  9. Lara Poles
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  10. Susan E. Gardiner
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  11. Satish Kumar
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  12. Richard Espley
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  13. Richard K. Volz
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  14. Michela Troggio
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  15. Ignasi Iglesias
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Chagné.

Additional information

Communicated by E. Dirlewanger

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplemental Figure 1

Marker validation for red skin coloration in five apple families. The red coloration is expressed as anthocyanin concentration and intensity score. The parentage of the five populations is indicated in Supplemental Table 1 (PPTX 306 kb)

Supplemental Table 1

Parentage of the five families used for marker validation for red skin in apple (DOCX 12 kb)

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Chagné, D., Kirk, C., How, N. et al. A functional genetic marker for apple red skin coloration across different environments. Tree Genetics & Genomes 12, 67 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-016-1025-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-016-1025-8

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