First genetic linkage map of chilling injury susceptibility in peach (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch) fruit with SSR and SNP markers

Peach and nectarine (Prunus persica L) are highly perishable; they ripen and deteriorate quickly at ambient temperature. Storage at low temperature (0–5°C) is a common strategy used to slow the ripening processes and extending shelf life. However, if susceptible varieties are held too long at a low temperature, they will not ripen properly and will develop chilling injury (CI) symptoms like mealiness, flesh browning, and flesh bleeding. Understanding the genetic control of these traits to produce CI resistant cultivars will greatly benefit producers, shippers and consumers. Mapping approach for a set of 40 candidate genes (CGs) obtained after a transcriptomic analysis of peach between high tolerant and sensitivity to CI were used, to identify CI controlling genes in Pop-DG progeny population and CI-susceptible (hermoza) and chilling injury-resistant (oded) peaches. A set of 142 CGs from detailed transcriptomic analysis of two different peach cultivars studied previously and additional 10 CGs nominated from published works and review articles of physiology and transcriptomic study of peach fruit subjected to CI were localized in this study. In present study 12 CGs have been mapped on Pop-DG population with 8 SSR and 26 SNP markers.