Flavor improvement is currently one of the most important goals for strawberry breeders. At the same time, it is one of the most complex traits to improve, involving the balanced combination of several desired characteristics such as high sweetness, moderate acidity, and the appropriate combination of aroma compounds that are beginning to be delineated in consumer tests. DNA-informed breeding will expedite the selection of complex traits, such as flavor, over traditional phenotypic evaluation, particularly when markers linked to several traits of interests are combined during the breeding process. Natural variation in mesifurane and γ-decalactone, two key volatile compounds providing sweet Sherry and fresh peach-like notes to strawberry fruits, is controlled by the FaOMT and FaFAD1 genes, respectively. In this study, we have optimized a simple PCR test for combined analysis of these genes and determined a prediction accuracy above 91% using a set of 71 diverse strawberry accessions. This high accuracy in predicting the presence of these important volatiles combined with the simplicity of the analytical methodology makes this DNA test an efficient tool for its implementation in current strawberry-breeding programs for the selection of new strawberry cultivars with superior flavor.

中文翻译：

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验证PCR试验可预测栽培草莓（Fragaria×ananassa）水果中香精挥发物美西呋喃和γ-十内酯的存在。

改善风味目前是草莓育种者最重要的目标之一。同时，它是最复杂的特征之一，涉及一些期望特性的平衡组合，例如高甜度，适度的酸度以及在消费者测试中已开始描述的芳香化合物的适当组合。与传统的表型评估相比，DNA信息育种将加快对复杂性状（如风味）的选择，尤其是在育种过程中将与几种感兴趣的性状相关的标记结合在一起时。美沙ane烷和γ-癸内酯是两种关键的挥发性化合物，它们为草莓果实提供甜的雪利酒和类似桃子的新鲜香气，它们的自然变异分别受FaOMT和FaFAD1基因控制。在这项研究中，我们优化了用于组合分析这些基因的简单PCR测试，并使用一组71种草莓品种确定了91％以上的预测准确性。预测这些重要挥发物的高准确度以及分析方法的简单性，使得该DNA测试成为在当前草莓育种计划中实施以选择具有优良风味的新草莓品种的有效工具。