Differential Gene Expression Studies: A Possible Way to Understand Bearing Habit in Fruit Crops

Abstract

India is still by far the major producer of various fruit crops, but its relative share in the world production has been gradually declining. Alternate bearer fruit cultivars present a serious economic problem to fruit growers. An alternate bearing plant is the one that does not bear a regular crop year-after-year; rather heavy yields are followed by extremely light yield. This complex phenomenon could be solved by transcriptome analysis resulted in numerous differentially expressed genes (DEGs), allowing the partial identification of mechanisms that convert ‘on’ into ‘off’ buds. Several candidate genes would be identified in future studies whose differential expression can be correlated with growth habit and architectural variation in another perennial fruit crops. The information generated will be utilized for identification of potential parents, desired hybrids in early nursery stage, thus would assist breeders by bringing precision breeding and also make available fruits during off years.