Genomic insights into the important ornamental and stress resistance traits of Prunus mume
Introduction
Prunus mume Sieb. et Zucc. is a traditional ornamental and fruit tree crop native to China. It blooms in early spring in temperate regions of Asia. Because the Latin name of P. mume was given by French Siebold & Zuccarini in 1835 due to its cultivation in Japan (Siebold and Zuccarini, 1835), many European and American scholars call it "Japanese apricot" or "Japanese plum", mistakenly believing that P. mume originated in Japan. After years of investigation and research, it has become a consensus in the academic circles that P. mume originated in China. The Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening translated P. mume into "mei" according to the pronunciation of Chinese (Huxley et al., 1992). This translation has also been accepted and applied by scholars and has become an English name for P. mume communication.
Prunus mume is a significant woody ornamental plant with several features including early florescence, colorful corollas, various flower types and diverse plant architecture. Therefore, it is extensively distributed and applied in landscape architecture. However, research on the functional genomics of P. mume is lagging behind other horticultural crops and fruit trees such as apricot, orange and apple, which has grievously impeded the application of genetic resources in modern molecular breeding to produce new cultivars. Since the advent of next-generation and high-throughput sequencing, sequencing technologies have continuously advanced whereas costs continuously declined. During the last decade, the continuous advancement of sequencing technologies have facilitated the whole-genome sequencing of P. mume. Our work can be summarized in five aspects: (1) the whole genome sequencing of P. mume by Illumina GA II and Oxford Nanopore; (2) identification and functional analysis of important ornamental traits and stress resistance gene families based on bioinformatics analysis; (3) the resequencing of multiple materials from Prunus species and mining of key candidate genes based on genome-wide association study (GWAS); (4) the breeding of new cultivars based on molecular marker assisted selection breeding technology system; and (5) the development of new tools for rapid functional verification of candidate genes. In this review, the research results of the past ten years from whole-genome sequencing, resequencing and verification of important traits of P. mume are summarized. Meanwhile, potential future challenges and prospects are put forward, which will contribute to accelerate the breeding programs in P. mume and other Prunus species.
Section snippets
Germplasm and cultivar resources
Prunus mume has a history of cultivation, introduction and application for more than 3000 years. Before the Qin Dynasty, fruits of wild P. mume were used as condiments. Since the Han Dynasty, it has been cultivated as ornamental flowering tree (Li and Liu, 2011). And now, P. mume is divided into fruiting P. mume and ornamental P. mume according to their use. But this division is not absolute, many cultivars possess both ornamental and edible values (Zhang and Bao, 1998). China is the center of
Whole-genome sequencing
As the first completely sequenced species among the Prunus subfamilies of Rosaceae, P. mume genome is of great significance for the research of Rosaceae family. It can be used to comprehend the overall structure of Rosaceae genome and the evolutionary relationships of Rosaceae genera. Using wild samples from Tongmai and Tibet, the whole-genome sequencing of P. mume was performed through the Illumina Genome Analyzer (GA) II method (Zhang et al., 2012). By sequencing, 28.4 Gb clean date (50.4 Gb
Key genes associated with important ornamental traits
Due to unclear genetic background, long breeding cycle and complex gene regulation network of P. mume, it was difficult to carry out the research on the molecular mechanism of flowering regulation, flower scent and cold resistance. The whole-genome sequencing, resequencing and high-density genetic map construction of P. mume, has laid an important foundation for the analysis of genetic regulation mechanism of significant ornamental traits and molecular marker assisted breeding. Therefore,
Breakthrough in cold resistant cultivars
The natural distribution and cultivation sites of P. mume are mostly located in the Yangtze River basin and the south of Yangtze River. "Stepping on the snow to looking for blossoming P. mume" is a unique garden scenery in the south of the Yangtze River. However, most northerners are familiar with P. mume but have never seen them in full bloom. In order to enjoy P. mume in the open field in northern China, since the 1950s, Junyu Chen has put forward the idea of "Transferring Prunus mume from
Persevering long term breeding goal
Prunus mume is a traditional Chinese ornamental tree with a long history of cultivation and wide use in gardens. Unlike the tremendous growth of the global flower industry, research on the basic biological problems faced by P. mume still lags behind, resulting in low breeding efficiency and a limited number of excellent cultivars. This limits the upgrading of P. mume industry and its value in the international market. Although breeding of P. mume has made some achievements, existing cultivars
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Xue Li: Writing – original draft. Ping Li: Formal analysis. Tangchun Zheng: Writing – original draft. Qixiang Zhang: Writing – original draft.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
The research was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2021ZY39), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32071816), and the Special Fund for Beijing Common Construction Project. We would like to thank Sagheer Ahmad in Fujian agriculture and Forestry University (Fuzhou, China) for the assistance in English editing.
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