Physiological and transcriptomic changes derived of the application of ethylene biosynthesis regulators 1-MCP^® and Ethrel^® in different apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) and Japanese plum (Prunus salicina L.) cultivars

Japanese plum (Prunus salicina L.) and apricot (P. armeniaca L.) are together with peach (P. persica D.A. Webb.) the most worldwide commercialized stone fruits. Japanese and apricot breeding programs are mainly focused on fruit quality traits. In addition, at this moment the analysis of postharvest traits related to the fruit shelf life period is a new breeding aspect of special interest. In this context, the aim of this work is the physiological and transcriptomic analysis of postharvest behavior of different Japanese plum (‘Angeleno’, ‘Black splendor’, ‘Golden japan’ and ‘Santa Rosa’) and apricot (‘Moniquí’, ‘Goldrich’ and ‘Dorada’) cultivars using ethylene biosynthesis regulators 1-MCP^® (ethylene inhibitor) and Ethrel^® (ethylene precursor). As a result, apricot ‘Goldrich’ and Japanese plum ‘Santa Rosa’ were selected on day 4 as the most contrasting cultivars for transcriptomic analysis using RNA-Seq. In addition, de novo transcriptome assembly was performed by Trinity in order to reconstruct the transcript sequences without reference genome sequence. A total of 40,626 and 39,067 unigene contigs were annotated at least one public database in ‘Goldrich’ and ‘Santa Rosa’ respectively, which is contributing to obtain new information about Prunus species without a reference genome. In addition, differential expression analysis showed a list of candidate genes involved in the response to the application of 1-MCP^® and Ethrel^® in apricot and Japanese plum.