Credit: Xingang Li.
Genes involved in creating sweet jujube fruits with the right amount of tartness played an important role in the domestication of this popular Asian fruit, according to genomic analyses by Jian Huang and Xingang Li of Northwest A&F University in Yangling, China, and colleagues, in a study published December 22nd in PLOS Genetics.
Humans love fruits with the right balance of sweetness and acidity, but the role played by genetics in turning a sour wild fruit into a sweet, domesticated one is not well understood. Researchers sequenced the Chinese jujube, an economically important fruit tree crop in China, as well as 31 cultivated and wild varieties of the fruit, to gain insight into its domestication process.
The genome sequences showed that cultivated jujube plants interbred with wild varieties several times during its history of human cultivation. Comparative analysis of the genomes also revealed that a type of jujube that is eaten fresh and has a crisper texture, called Dongzao, has a recent insertion into its genome that the Junzao variety, which is eaten dried, does not have. The researchers found that genes involved in fruit sugar content and acid metabolism are located in genomic regions that are identical between varieties, showing that once humans had identified a jujube plant with a sweeter taste, only plants with those genes became widely cultivated.
The study provides insights into how the jujube has evolved under human cultivation and the role of domestication in shaping its genome. The work also provides a valuable genomic resource for breeders working to create improved jujube varieties, and may be applicable to the study of other fruit trees, such as apples, which are under intensive breeding to produce fruit with the best flavor.
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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Genetics: http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1006433
Citation: Huang J, Zhang C, Zhao X, Fei Z, Wan K, Zhang Z, et al. (2016) The Jujube Genome Provides Insights into Genome Evolution and the Domestication of Sweetness/Acidity Taste in Fruit Trees. PLoS Genet 12(12): e1006433. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1006433
Funding: This work was supported by grants from the National Science and Technology (2013BAD20B03), Key Project from the Government of Shaanxi Province (2013KTZB02-03-1), a Public Welfare Project from the Ministry of Forestry (201304110), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2014YB074), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31372019), Talents Supporting Plan of Shaanxi Province, a special fund from the Key laboratory of Shaanxi Province (2015SZS-10), a special fund from NWAFU for the jujube experimental station (XTG2015002), and the United States National Science Foundation (IOS-1539831). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript,
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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Xingang Li
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