Fruit neck affects the appearance and commercial quality of melon. In the present study, we investigated the genetic basis of fruit neck in melon by utilizing a segregating population derived from M1-15 (without fruit neck, ssp. agrestis , cultivar) and PI 614174 (with fruit neck, ssp. agrestis , wild type). The results indicated that a single-dominant gene controls melon fruit neck trait (designated as CmFn , fruit neck). Bulk segregant analysis (BSA-seq) and genetic mapping narrowed down the CmFn locus into a 116.693-kb region on chromosome 2, harbors 11 predicted genes. Sequence variation analysis in the promoter and coding regions combined with gene expression analysis between parental lines indicated MELO3C015395.2 (late embryogenesis abundant protein), MELO3C015398.2 and MELO3C015399.2 (both encoding cysteine synthase-like) may represent the most promising candidate genes for CmFn locus. Our finding provided target genes for further melon fruit development research.
Cao et al. (Fri,) studied this question.