Nurul Arneida Husin, Sadequr Rahman, Rohini Karunakaran, Subhash Janardhan Bhore

Genet Mol Biol.; 2023 Jan 6; 45(4):e20210379. doi:10.1590/1678-4685-GMB-2021-0379.

Abstract

Durian (Durio zibethinus Murr.) fruits are famous for their unique aroma. This study analysed the Durian fruit transcriptome to discover the expression patterns of genes and to understand their regulation. Three developmental stages of Durian fruit, namely, early [90 days post-anthesis (DPA)], mature (120 DPA), and ripen (127 DPA), were studied. The Illumina HiSeq platform was used for sequencing. The sequence data were analysed using four different mapping aligners and statistical methods: CLC Genomic Workbench, HISAT2+DESeq2, Tophat+Cufflinks, and HISAT2+edgeR. The analyses showed that over 110 million clean reads were mapped to the Durian genome, yielding 19,976, 11,394, 17,833, and 24,351 differentially expressed genes during 90-127 days post-anthesis. Many identified differentially expressed genes were linked to the fruit ripening processes. The data analysis suggests that most genes with increased expression at the ripening stage were primarily involved in the metabolism of cofactors and vitamins, nucleotide metabolism, and carbohydrate metabolism. Significantly expressed genes from the young to mature stage were mainly associated with carbohydrate metabolism, amino acid metabolism, and cofactor and vitamin metabolism. The transcriptome data will serve as a foundation for understanding Durian fruit development-specific genes and could be helpful in fruit's trait improvement.

See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36622241/

Figure 6: Hierarchical clustering analysis, heatmap, and key regulatory genes involved in Durian fruit softening development and ripening stage. Blue and orange bands indicate the high and low expression of genes, respectively. The color scale representing log2 fold change values is shown; young to mature stage (YSMS), young to ripening stage (YSRS), and mature to ripening stage (MSRS).