Fruit Breeding in the Context of Climate Change Adaptation

Abstract

Spain is the world’s leading exporter of fresh stone fruits belonging to the genus Prunus. This position has been favored by Spain’s climate, which enables earlier production than in the rest of Europe, as well as and commercial use of highquality, certified, virus-resistant new cultivars adapted to climate change the almond, apricot and plum by the development national in the different national breeding programs and particularly conducted at CEBAS-CSIC in Murcia in the case of almond, apricot and plum. In the context of the new climate, this communication aims to address the latest approaches being carried out by the CEBAS-CSIC of Murcia in the development of new Prunus varieties in the postgenomic scenario (once the complete sequence of the genomes of the main species is known). Furthermore, massive genome (Genotype by Sequencing, GBS) and transcriptome (RNA-Seq) sequencing is helping to better understand the biological and molecular processes associated with the expression of these traits of agronomic interest. Once these genes are identified, we can use this information to select seedlings that have these characteristics using classical Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) or quantitative Retrotranscribed PCR (qRT-PCR) with a potential application in marker-assisted selection. More recently, a new line of research has been initiated aimed at identifying epigenetic marks associated with characters, especially adaptation to the environment, such as flowering time. Epigenetics studies change in phenotype that are inherited, but are not due to alterations in the DNA sequence. This DNA methylation mechanism has been described as a regulator of dormancy breaking in fruit trees or fruit ripening.

Keywords

• Stone fruits
• Prunus
• Breeding
• Genetics
• Genomics
• Transcriptomics
• Epigenetics
• Epigenetics

References

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