MOLECULAR AND PHENOTYPIC STUDIES ON VARIATIONS IN FLAKE COLOURATION, CAROTENOID CONTENT AND CAROTENOGENESIS GENE EXPRESSION IN JACKFRUIT (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) VARIETIES AND GENOTYPES
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Date
2024-12-02
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University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore
Abstract
The Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) is an evergreen tropical crop and
bears fruits with varying pulp colours. It is highly cross-pollinated and exhibits wide-range
of diversity in fruit characters. The fruit and flake characteristics of the twenty Jackfruit
genotypes studied varied, the genotype T10 recorded the higher fruit weight (11.32 kg) and
number of flakes per kg (32.5), the genotype T17 recorded longer fruit length (63.5 cm),
core-length (65.25 cm), higher individual flake weight (70.5 g) and flake thickness (1.59
cm), the T12 recorded higher fruit diameter (76.89 cm), core diameter (9.10 cm) and flake
length (8.38 cm). The genotypes T13, T19, T14, and T8 recorded a higher weight of flakes
per kg fruit (758 g), rind thickness (3.15 cm), seed-length (4.40 cm) and seed-width (6.68
cm), respectively. Biochemical analysis revealed that the coppery-red flakes contained
higher total carotenoid (287.5–604μg), lycopene (0.69-3.38μg), lutein (3.66–20.68μg),
neoxanthin (2.45–13.71μg), violoxanthin (2.90–13.43μg), β-carotene (1.62-10.29μg) and
all trans-lutein (0.19–10.77μg) per 100g and it was lower in cream flakes. Whereas α-
carotene (0.67-9.85μg/100g) was higher in cream flakes. The study of carotenogenesis
genes revealed that the BCH-1 gene amplified at 293bp, LyBc at 298bp, BCI at 304bp, and
ZEP at 302bp. Sequencing and n-BLAST revealed that the BCH-1 (92.44%) and BCI
(92.86%) gene had a maximum identity, followed by LyBc (89.15%). The relative
expression of genes such as LyBc (93 folds), BCI (17.1 folds) and ZEP (11.06 folds) was
higher in coppery-red flakes, whereas BCH-1 (93.6 folds) was higher in orange flakes. A
multi-target preservation of flakes was done by osmo-balancing using 68.9oBrix sugar
syrup with an immersion time of 180.6 minutes. Osmotic dewatered flakes storage duration
was increased when packed in aluminium and polypropylene pouches for 42h and 78h at
ambient temperature, 16 and 25 days at 4oC temperature, respectively