Genetic characterization of an almond germplasm collection and volatilome profiling of raw and roasted kernels
Open Access
- 1 February 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Horticulture Research
- Vol. 8 (1), 1-19
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41438-021-00465-7
Abstract
Almond is appreciated for its nutraceutical value and for the aromatic profile of the kernels. In this work, an almond collection composed of 96 Sicilian accessions complemented with 10 widely cultivated cultivars was phenotyped for the production of volatile organic compounds using a proton-transfer time-of-flight mass spectrometer and genotyped using the Illumina Infinium®18 K Peach SNP array. The profiling of the aroma was carried out on fresh and roasted kernels enabling the detection of 150 mass peaks. Sixty eight, for the most related with sulfur compounds, furan containing compounds, and aldehydes formed by Strecker degradation, significantly increased during roasting, while the concentration of fifty-four mass peaks, for the most belonging to alcohols and terpenes, significantly decreased. Four hundred and seventy-one robust SNPs were selected and employed for population genetic studies. Structure analysis detected three subpopulations with the Sicilian accessions characterized by a different genetic stratification compared to those collected in Apulia (South Italy) and the International cultivars. The linkage-disequilibrium (LD) decay across the genome was equal tor2 = 0.083. Furthermore, a high level of collinearity (r2 = 0.96) between almond and peach was registered confirming the high synteny between the two genomes. A preliminary application of a genome-wide association analysis allowed the detection of significant marker-trait associations for 31 fresh and 33 roasted almond mass peaks respectively. An accurate genetic and phenotypic characterization of novel germplasm can represent a valuable tool for the set-up of marker-assisted selection of novel cultivars with an enhanced aromatic profile.Keywords
This publication has 82 references indexed in Scilit:
- OncomiRdbB: a comprehensive database of microRNAs and their targets in breast cancerBMC Bioinformatics, 2014
- Dynamic regulation of genome-wide pre-mRNA splicing and stress tolerance by the Sm-like protein LSm5 in ArabidopsisGenome Biology, 2014
- Peach genetic resources: diversity, population structure and linkage disequilibriumBMC Genomic Data, 2013
- Advances in Fruit Aroma Volatile ResearchMolecules, 2013
- Mapping quantitative trait loci for kernel composition in almondBMC Genomic Data, 2012
- Wild pollination services to California almond rely on semi‐natural habitatJournal of Applied Ecology, 2012
- STRUCTURE HARVESTER: a website and program for visualizing STRUCTURE output and implementing the Evanno methodConservation Genetics Resources, 2011
- Genetic variation, population structure and linkage disequilibrium in peach commercial varietiesBMC Genomic Data, 2010
- Association genetics in crop improvementCurrent Opinion in Plant Biology, 2010
- Detecting the number of clusters of individuals using the software structure: a simulation studyMolecular Ecology, 2005