Genome-wide isolation and expression analysis of vacuolar processing enzyme (VPE) gene family in four apple cultivars with different storability

ABSTRACT

This research was undertaken to determine expression patterns of vacuolar processing enzyme (VPE) genes in four apple (Malus domestica (Suckow) Borkh) cultivars ‘Royal Gala (RG)’, ‘Golden Delicious (GD)’, ‘Ralls Janet (RJ)’ and ‘Fuji (FJ)’ during ripening. The results showed that GD and RG had higher respiration rate, ethylene production, content of malondialdehyde (MDA), relative electrical conductivity (REC) and VPE activity than RJ and FJ during ripening. A total of 17 MdVPEs were found to be expressed in four cultivars. These MdVPEs exhibited different expression patterns during ripening of four cultivars. Generally, MdVPEβ1, MdVPEγ2, MdVPEγ4 and MdVPEδ7 might be closely associated with ripening of all cultivars. MdVPEα6 might have a role in the early period of ripening of ACS1–2/-2 (1-Aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase) homozygous cultivars (RG, RJ and FJ). Our data here would be helpful in understanding the associations between MdVPEs and storage properties of different apple cultivars.

KEYWORDS:

• Vacuolar processing enzyme
• apple cultivars
• ripening
• gene expression

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data will be made available on request.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14620316.2024.2332596.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [32372784]; Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province [2022-MS-367].