THE GENOMICS OF FRUIT QUALITY

Consumers of whole foods, such as fruits, demand consistently high quality and the development of new varieties with enhanced health, convenience, novel taste, and a reduced impact on the environment.
Conventional breeding of temperate fruit crops such as apples and kiwifruit, the focus of HortResearch, exploits both existing cultivars and the extensive germplasm collections of related species and novel accessions.
Our genomics research is focused on the key producer and consumer traits.
We achieve this by defining the biology of our key fruit traits and developing an understanding of the processes in model plants.
Our translation genomics research then transfers this molecular information to our target crops.
To do this, we have developed an extensive fruit EST sequence database and are in the process, through collaboration, of developing a Whole Genome Sequence for these crops.
In our work on fruit colour, we have described both the metabolic and regulatory genes involved in anthocyanin accumulation, through sequencing and functional conservation with genes from model plants.

I International Symposium on Biotechnology of Fruit Species: BIOTECHFRUIT2008

A.C. Allan, W.A. Laing, R.V. Espley, M. Montefiori, C. Dwamena, R. Henry, K. Lin-Wang, A.P. Dare, R.P. Hellens

translational genomics, bioinformatics, functional testing, candidate genes, transient assays, transgenic plants

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2009.839.56