Marker-assisted selection breeding for parthenocarpic loci Par2.1 in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)

Parthenocarpy is a complex agronomic trait affected cucumber (Cucumber Sativus L.) quality and yield, the application of parthenocarpic related-genes or -quantitative trait locus (QTLs) is one of effective to enhance fruit set in the facility cultivation of cucumber, but marker-assisted selection (MAS) breeding for parthenocarpy still not widely used.
In this study, the major-effect QTL Par2.1 identified from different background cucumber, is a promising QTL resource to improve parthenocarpy.
An efficient co-dominant insertion/deletion (InDel) marker InDel-16y-46 linked with Par2.1, was developed based on the whole-genome resequencing data.
The effectiveness and accuracy of the InDel-16y-46 for parthenocarpy were further validated by F₂ populations and 198 cucumber cultivars.
In addition, the InDel-16y-46 was effectively applied in MAS breeding to improve parthenocarpy of non-parthenocarpy cucumber line ‘407’. In summary, this study provides effective marker InDel-16y-46 co-segregating with Par2.1, and sheds new light on potential value for MAS breeding program to breed cucumber cultivars with parthenocarpy.

VII International Symposium on Cucurbits

Pinyu Zhu, Yuxiao Hou, Yongjiao Meng, Shiyou Wang, Jialin Meng, Haifeng Ding, Chunyan Cheng, Xiaqing Yu, Yuhui Wang, Chuntao Qian, Qunfeng Lou, Ji Li, Jinfeng Chen

cucumber, parthenocarpy, marker-assisted selection, major-effect QTL, Par2.1

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2024.1411.9