The PH gene determines fruit acidity and contributes to the evolution of sweet melons

Shahar Cohen, Maxim Itkin, Yelena Yeselson, Galil Tzuri, Vitaly Portnoy, Rotem Harel-Baja, Shery Lev, Uzi Sa‘ar, Rachel Davidovitz-Rikanati, Nadine Baranes, Einat Bar, Dalia Wolf, Marina Petreikov, Shmuel Shen, Shifra Ben-Dor, Ilana Rogachev, Asaph Aharoni, Tslil Ast, Maya Schuldiner, Eduard Belausov, Ravit Eshed, Ron Ophir, Amir Sherman, Benedikt Frei, H. Ekkehard Neuhaus, Yimin Xu, Zhangjun Fei, Jim Giovannoni, Efraim Lewinsohn, Yaakov Tadmor, Harry S. Paris, Nurit Katzir, Yosef Burger and Arthur A. Schaffer ()
Additional contact information
Shahar Cohen: ARO-Volcani Center
Maxim Itkin: ARO-Volcani Center
Yelena Yeselson: ARO-Volcani Center
Galil Tzuri: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Vitaly Portnoy: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Rotem Harel-Baja: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Shery Lev: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Uzi Sa‘ar: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Rachel Davidovitz-Rikanati: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Nadine Baranes: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Einat Bar: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Dalia Wolf: ARO-Volcani Center
Marina Petreikov: ARO-Volcani Center
Shmuel Shen: ARO-Volcani Center
Shifra Ben-Dor: Weizmann Institute
Ilana Rogachev: Weizmann Institute
Asaph Aharoni: Weizmann Institute
Tslil Ast: Weizmann Institute
Maya Schuldiner: Weizmann Institute
Eduard Belausov: ARO-Volcani Center
Ravit Eshed: ARO-Volcani Center
Ron Ophir: ARO-Volcani Center
Amir Sherman: ARO-Volcani Center
Benedikt Frei: Technische Universitat Kaiserlautern
H. Ekkehard Neuhaus: Technische Universitat Kaiserlautern
Yimin Xu: Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Science
Zhangjun Fei: Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Science
Jim Giovannoni: Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Science
Efraim Lewinsohn: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Yaakov Tadmor: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Harry S. Paris: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Nurit Katzir: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Yosef Burger: ARO-Newe Ya‘ar Center
Arthur A. Schaffer: ARO-Volcani Center

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Taste has been the subject of human selection in the evolution of agricultural crops, and acidity is one of the three major components of fleshy fruit taste, together with sugars and volatile flavour compounds. We identify a family of plant-specific genes with a major effect on fruit acidity by map-based cloning of C. melo PH gene (CmPH) from melon, Cucumis melo taking advantage of the novel natural genetic variation for both high and low fruit acidity in this species. Functional silencing of orthologous PH genes in two distantly related plant families, cucumber and tomato, produced low-acid, bland tasting fruit, showing that PH genes control fruit acidity across plant families. A four amino-acid duplication in CmPH distinguishes between primitive acidic varieties and modern dessert melons. This fortuitous mutation served as a preadaptive antecedent to the development of sweet melon cultigens in Central Asia over 1,000 years ago.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5026 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms5026

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5026

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().